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The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 31 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Today is gonna be a little different, because we’re going to demonstrate how big of a shill each one of us is.
That’s right, guys, today on Current Events, we’ve sold out.
In no uncertain terms.
So, a number of great companies have reached out to us offering a sponsorship, and we just want to assure you guys we really do believe in the products and services they offer, and we just want to share them with you in this episode.
And starting with our very first sponsor, voiceactorwebsites.com.
As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don’t look right on mobile devices.
They’re not built for marketing and SEO. They’re expensive. They’re expensive, you have limited or no control.
And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what’s the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com.
Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control.
No need to hire someone every time you wanna make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700.
So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn’t be a pain in the you-know-what.
So the main interview portion of the episode is actually a roundtable, where we talked about social media with a couple of stalwarts of the social media and voiceover circles, at least in our minds. And we’ll get to that in just a few minutes. But before we do that, Sean wants to tell you about one of our sponsors.
That’s right. So some of you guys might not know, but I’m actually the member liaison for the Global Voice Acting Academy, also affectionately known as the GVAA. And we provide professional online voiceover education through classes, workshops, webinars, private coaching, demo production and VO membership programs.
So whether you’re just beginning your VO journey or an experienced veteran, GVAA offers professional training, career resources, rate guide services and a supportive caring community. So if you’re interested, you should check us out at globalvoiceacademy.com.
Yeah, and they’re no strangers to the program. We’ve had Christina, the founder on and we’ve talked about them pretty much since the beginning. It’s no secret that we were fans of the company and we’re so happy to have them on board.
Thank you guys very much. It’s wonderful to have you as our sponsor for the podcast.
So, we are still going to run through our normal show segments and we want to start as we normally do with current events. So, is there anything cool going on in your VO world, Sean?
Just some fun auditions. I went up to Seattle recently and actually speaking of GVA, David Tobak, our co-worker and COO, our Chief of Operations, actually came to visit me for a week. He even recorded some stuff here.
It was a lot of fun. But anyways, he’s back in Florida now, but the day I dropped him off, we had to get up at like 4.30 to get him to the airport in time. And then I had an audition in Seattle after that.
But it was really nice because I felt like the producer really understood, like they had been frustrated with a number of audition, or like rounds of auditions. And so they’re like, all right, what if we get, like have them work in pairs, get them on like a couch, watching TV, like set the scene, almost like an on-camera audition or something like that. And it was just so much easier to get into the role.
It was wonderful.
That’s cool.
Yeah, so that was a lot of fun. And speaking of social media, I was able to find a new corporate narration client because someone had posted in the British Facebook group. So I need to record something for them after we do this.
Wait, the British group, you’re doing a British accent?
No, they wanted American talent.
Oh, yeah. We’ve talked about that. That’s a good bit.
So that’s right, be the unique commodity in the group that you’re in if you can help it.
Exactly. Don’t work with a bunch of people who sound exactly like you.
Exactly.
Well, that’s cool. I’ve had a couple of cool things going on as well. I’ve been continuing my spate of medical narration that hopefully some of you have seen on social media.
My latest one was on, let’s see, Angel Man Syndrome, which I hadn’t heard about before, and actually did the whole segment, pronouncing it Angle Man, because I’m an idiot. And the client got back to me and said, it’s Angel, and they did a little emoji with an angel and a halo over it, which I didn’t even know existed. I said, oh, that makes more sense.
So…
Was the conversation over social media, just over, or just…
No, just emailing back and forth with the client.
Oh, okay, okay, wasn’t true.
Yeah, I hadn’t realized you could actually do emojis and emails, but whatever program they were using, it came up that way. And then I said, oh, now I get it, sorry.
So I went back and did that. Isn’t that the same, like, where, I don’t know, like, they can actually have, like, the softening of the voice and just almost like a frail demeanor or something like that?
Yeah, well, I can tell you the whole spiel if you want. It’s a chromosomal abnormality that comes when you have disparate pairs of chromosomes from your father and your mother. But go watch the whole thing if you want to on YouTube.
But anyway, that’s an ongoing client, and I have about 30 more of those to do. And never complain about repeat business. And speaking of repeat business, I had a cool situation that just happened in the beginning of this week.
A client reached out to me yesterday, who I had done a video for over the summer, a repeat client, and they came to me through my agent in New Zealand and said, yeah, I’d love to do another video for you, but I really think we should go back through the agency because that’s how you found me to begin with. So it’s the first time I actually was able to send something to my agent where they were grateful because I didn’t try and cut them out. So word to the wise, if you have representation, respect them and they’ll respect you.
Yeah, because they’re looking out for your best interests. That’s what their job is. So they might be able to negotiate a better rate for you.
So certainly at least let them know when an opportunity like that comes up.
Yeah, and that’s basically why I did it. I mean, aside from just being good business and me being a generally good guy, I thought I could easily screw myself out of this negotiation because it’s not what I do. The client didn’t give me a budget.
They said, tell me what you would charge. And, you know, I go by the GBA rate guide normally, and I’m usually happy to do that. But if I can get the negotiation out of my hands, I’m all happy to do that.
So that’s why I said to the agency and said, you guys do it and tell me what you think. And the client didn’t mind at all, actually. He just said, great, yeah, no problem.
So that pretty much wraps up everything for current events. But up next, we have…
So Sean, what have you done to yourself this week, or your budget?
Well, actually, I finally took advantage of my Sweetwater gift card that I got from the incredible Unicorn Grand at VO Atlanta. I got a very nice, what’s called a drum throne for when I need to sit in the booth for long-form narration projects. And I go back and forth, because sometimes I don’t feel like I have enough energy when I do that, but when I stand up, sometimes I have a penchant for being overly expressive or just artificial in my sounding.
So, I don’t know, you really just need to experiment in just sit or stand, however you’re feeling that day, I guess. But, I mean, just having a comfortable thing, or drum throne to sit on is what it’s called, it’s been like, ah, you can just hear the relaxation in my voice when I read. It’s amazing.
Is an extra high one? Because I looked at that myself for a while and I found they were all too low. Like, basically it was like sitting on a throne, you know, the other throne.
And it was kind of uncomfortable because all my gear is higher in the booth.
I haven’t extended it to its full height, but I have had other people come in here who are much taller than me sit on it and they thought it was quite comfortable. So, I don’t know. If it’s something you’re interested in, I’m very happy with it.
It’s called the Rockin Sock Drum Throne, by the way. It’s got this almost like blue, at least the version I got, like blue velvet covering. And it’s got an optional back if you want it to look more like an office chair or you need that additional lumbar support.
But it’s quite comfortable with or without it. So I’m really happy with that. So actually, while we’re on the subject of that, I wanted to give a shout out to Beth Windsor Stewart and Lynn Norris for the recommendation.
They’re character actresses and audio book narrators. And so I think they would know a little bit about sitting in the booth for extended periods. So thank you guys very much for the recommendation.
And thank you, Emmett Andrews for your recommendation of the home purpose office chair for my studio desk. It’s very comfortable and I wouldn’t have found it without it. So thank you.
Ergonomics are important.
Yes, ergonomics are very important if you’re spending eight or more hours a day in your office.
Yeah, definitely. Anything else? Or is that the only one?
Nope, that’s it. Oh, actually I did get a isotope RX7. So I’m very excited to try that out.
Haven’t downloaded it yet, but they’re wonderful things. And last but not least, thank you Armin for your recommendation of the Renaissance Fox plugin. I was playing with that last night.
It sounds very nice. So thank you very much.
Cool. So in lieu of me buying anything stupid this month, because I actually didn’t, we’re going to talk about something I was given for free, well, almost free, in exchange from our new sponsor, Vocal Booth To Go. Now we’ve talked about them forever, ever since the first episode of the podcast, because we’ve used their products.
But if you don’t know, Vocal Booth To Go’s patented acoustic blankets are an effective alternative to expensive soundproofing. They’re often used by vocal and voiceover professionals, engineers and studios as an affordable soundproofing and absorption solution. They make your environment quieter for less.
Now I went out to the warehouse actually and met with the owner, Jeff, and the webmaster and marketing coordinator, Stephen Coghill, and we did some live sound with some of the new products. So what we’re gonna do is play that now and you’ll hear the, let’s see, the Vomo, the portable vocal unit, the hanging Vocal Booth. It’s sort of like your Sean, but a shorter version.
Yeah, it’s sort of like your booth cut in half. So it looks like the Vomo.
Cut in half from the, they chopped off the legs.
Yeah, exactly.
I wasn’t sure exactly what that was. That’s cool. I can understand why they might do that though.
And so, and for people who don’t know the Vomo, I have a version of it as well. It’s formally known as the Carry On Vocal Booth. But I think since carry on restrictions have changed, since when the product was first developed, he can decided to change the title.
So it’s now the vocal, or the Vomo, the Vocal Mobile Booth. And just as effective, if not more so, than when they first made it.
And then finally, you’ll hear a sound test from both outside and inside the new sound proofer booth, the SP sound proofer, it’s SPB33. SPB33. It’s the new and improved portable booth that has the mass-loaded vinyl sheets inside and has now a swinging door, which I got to try out and open up and close, and that was pretty cool.
So you’ll hear the before and after, and you can hear for yourself how the noise floor changes or drops when we close the door and zip it all up. So without further ado, let’s play the audio from my visit to Vocal Booth To Go. So welcome back to the VO Meter.
I’m actually here in the Vocal Booth To Go facilities in sunny Frederick, Maryland, for the time being anyway. And I’m joined by Stephen Coghill. And Stephen, tell us a little bit about what you do here at vocalboothtogo.com.
I am head of marketing here and audio engineer for Vocal Booth To Go. And I help people design and figure out what they need for their spaces and for the recording rooms and all that sort of stuff. And I also obviously market and design the website and put all the information for all the new products that we have going out.
Okay, well, Sean and I have talked about the products a lot since the beginning of our show, really even in show one because we both use them. But what we want to talk about is some of the new products that the company has coming out. Can you tell us what you’re excited about and what’s coming up?
Well, the newest products we have right now are that we’re excited about the new SBB booths. We have a new three by three soundproof booth and we have a six by six soundproof booth. And the newest thing about these booths is they actually have a swing open door.
So that’s, you know, before you had a zipper that you had to kind of open and crawl through, but now we have a proper door that actually swings open. So it’s easy kind of to get in and out of. Also they’ve been redesigned.
So we’ve shaved off about 100 pounds off of each booth. So that’s a good thing so that you’re not pushing around that much weight. Also the panels now zipper together and they seal with a Velcro flap.
So it just looks nicer. It’s a lot better looking. It seals a lot better.
And it seems to really provide good DB drop as far as the audio goes.
What is the ballpark reduction in noise that you think?
It’s about 40 to 45 DB. Which is actually pretty impressive, yeah.
Yeah, that’s really good.
Yeah, it is.
I’ve actually seen it up close. We’re gonna play a test from the booth in a couple of minutes where we do some room tone outside and then reading a script inside and you’ll get to hear yourselves what it sounds like. But yeah, I’m really excited about it.
I like to credit myself with coming up with the idea. I’m not sure if Jeff would agree.
Well, I’m not sure he would either, but yeah, we’ll definitely give you credit down there.
Yeah, I came out here about two years ago and rented the original model. And then I said to Jeff at that time, this is great, but if it only had a door. And then I think it was like two weeks later, he said, I love that idea.
Yeah, I’m gonna go make a prototype.
He does take, that’s the thing about Jeff, is he takes any and all suggestions, anybody who comes up and says, I mean, that’s how we develop our products, is somebody comes up with a problem and we come up with a solution. So that’s how all these products come about.
That’s great. So that’s the new SPB.
That’s the new, yeah, SPB33 and the 66 and they’re available on the website. I think we only have, we’re only down to 166. We’ve already sold out all the rest of them, but we have definitely a lot of the 33s that are available and ready to go.
That’s great. So let’s talk about some of the other products. Right now, we’re actually using the new model of the VOMO, the portable solution.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Yeah, so this is the voiceover mobile. This is a portable, kind of a suitcase type portable booth that you can take anywhere with you. Go on, take it on the plane, take it on your, take it in the car, go on vacation with it and basically be able to recording, get great recordings anywhere you go.
And that’s kind of what it is. So, you know, it pops up into a little kind of tent and it’s got our Producers Choice blankets surrounding it and you put your microphone inside and it works fantastic. I actually use it at my own recording studio at home and it works great.
Yeah, we’re actually using it right now to do this interview.
So, right now.
In the noisy warehouse with, is it 70? Right outside?
Yeah, that’s 15, actually.
Yeah, so really busy, six lane highway right outside. Similar to my own home studio, actually. And you can hear how the Vomo actually reduces the ambient noise pretty well.
Yeah, and we have the AC going too. So, we’ll see how that goes.
So what else?
Well, what else do we have?
We have a new hanging portable booth. So it’s basically a booth that it goes out, like kind of comes in a roll and a bag and you can take it with you. It’s kind of like smaller than the Vomo.
It doesn’t have like a tray, like a hard table like the Vomo has. Just a very soft product made of the Producers Choice blankets and you can unfold it, hang it up in a closet with a couple of hangers and you’re ready to go. You can start recording right away.
So it’s a very cool product. It’s called the Portable Hanging Vocal Booth and that’s very cool.
We’re going to take some pictures of these things before we go. I haven’t told Stephen this yet, but I’m going to. So we’ll put them on our Facebook page, the VO Meter, check that out and you can see what these actually look like.
Even though we do mostly audio here because we’re a voice over podcast, it helps sometimes to see the products as well. Also, where can they find them on your company’s website?
Yeah, it’s www.vocalbooth2go.com and all the products are listed under there. The other newest thing we have is, in addition to, we have a new style of fan. We still have our same fans that we have for the booths.
We have a six inch fan and we have a four inch fan, but we have a newly designed fan that’s inside. It’s gonna be really quiet and really powerful. So that’s one thing.
Another thing is the, is a fan speed controller. So it’s basically a fan controller that you can put in between your fan and the power and you can adjust the speed of it. So you can actually turn down the fan speed and make it quieter if you need to.
And was that fan and the controller designed by the company? Are they proprietary?
No, they’re not proprietary. They’re just products that we found and kind of used for this purpose.
Okay, the fan is really effective. I actually heard George Whitham at one point say it’s the quietest booth fan he’s ever heard.
Yeah, we used the soundproofing and basically designed a case for it that sits inside of it and that really makes it silent and run very, very efficient.
Which is really, really cool when you’re, hear that pun, really cool when you’re doing a recording and you want to, you know, breathe as well.
Yes, yes, you do need to breathe. It’s very important.
So anything else you want to showcase, Stephen?
Yeah, the last thing, or I don’t know if it’s the last thing, but the next thing is a universal stand, which is basically a really heavy duty stand that you can get for the VOMO, which is what we’re using now, the portable recording booth. And that will allow you to, you know, if you like to stand to deliver your performance, it’s a very robust stand that you can put the VOMO on without it tipping over and falling and breaking your expensive microphone. If you’re gonna use the hood and you’re gonna use accessories inside, it does tend to get pretty heavy.
And a thin microphone stand is good for, you know, certain things, but if you want it to be pretty much a permanent, sturdy setup in your house, the universal stand is the way to go. That’s what I use at my house as well. And it just keeps things really rock solid.
And the best thing is it also, you know, with a little modification, you can actually use it to support a blanket. You can support a six foot wide blanket whenever producer’s choice on there, and it’ll hold it freestanding and enable you to hang the blanket anywhere you want. It’s very, very flexible.
Awesome stuff.
So that’s pretty much all of our new products we have at the moment.
All right, well, I’m excited to check some of them out. I’m gonna take this VOMO home with me, which is pretty cool.
Yes, please do.
And I’m excited about all the new offerings the company has. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Paul.
And we’ll talk to you soon.
Appreciate it.
Okay, so now we’re outside the SPB33, the Sound Proofer booth, the new improved model with the swinging door. And I’m just gonna record some room tones so we hear what it sounds like in the warehouse here with the highway next door, a sewing machine in the background, and some people talking. So, here we go.
And now we’re inside the booth, with the zipper closed, and we’re going to do a quick read of a script to give you an idea of what it sounds like. Inside the booth, completely sealed up. Have you ever noticed what happens when you put in a movie?
It’s amazing. You just stick it in, sit back, hit play, and poof! The rest of the world just disappears.
Gone. Suddenly, it’s just you and your family. All right, so now we’re inside the portable hanging acoustic booth, or FAB, that’s with a PH, like pretty hot and tempting.
So we’re going to do a test run in here as well and see how it sounds. Have you ever noticed what happens when you put in a movie? It’s amazing.
You just stick it in, sit back, hit play, and poof! The rest of the world just disappears. Gone.
Suddenly, it’s just you and your family.
Great stuff, Paul. Love the interview. We have been, as you guys know, we have been a pretty devout supporter of Vocaboot to go over the years.
I’ve had their acoustic hanging booth, the original incarnation, for several years now. I’ve used their Vomo for several years too. I think it’s like…
And I’ve used a number of the different portable acoustic options out there, and I think it’s still my favorite. And they’re just great. And I love how Jeff is so receptive to feedback.
And I mean, just the story of it itself. It started as a moving blankets, and then he found out producers and actors were using it. And then he catered to that market ever since.
And so thank you, Jeff, so much for being so receptive to our feedback and trying to give us better and better solutions for our home studios. Thank you very much.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the experience out there. And what a lovely day. I know you haven’t been there, Sean, but it’s situated in the western mountains or the mountains west of Baltimore.
If you go about just 30 miles west of Baltimore, it becomes really mountainous. It’s the tail end of the Appalachians up here in the northeast. And it’s really cool to see when you drive out there, especially when it’s a sunny day, because you can see for miles and miles in that valley.
Ooh, sounds beautiful.
So in lieu of a VO Meter check, we’re going to be further chills and introduce our new sponsor again, or another new sponsor. The company is podcastdemos.com, and the founder is Tim Page, who has produced over 1,000 podcast intros for some of the biggest podcasts on the planet. Each demo includes custom-written scripts and hand-selected music, and is guaranteed to showcase your voice and talent in the best light possible.
With a finger on the pulse of what podcast producers want, you can be sure your podcast demo will sound professional, current, and competitive.
Yeah, it’s pretty incredible. Tim actually did Paul’s and my podcast demos, and he and his team were just amazing. I mean, his scriptwriter created original scripts perfect for my voice and my personality, and he even chose some scripts that, like, I didn’t think I was good for, but it sounds great on the demo.
And they really were reflective of current popular podcast genres. I recorded in the comfort of my own home studio, and Tim just worked his mastering magic. The whole process only took a couple of days, and, like, Paul and I couldn’t be more pleased with our demos.
So he is a consummate pro and so easy to work with. So thank you, Tim, and podcastdemos.com.
And now we’re actually going to play those demos for you. I guess we’ll play Sean’s first and then mine. You can hear the great work that Tim and his team did.
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So we’ll get to our social media roundtable in just a minute, right after a word from the Global Voice Acting Academy.
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Because you like to have fun.
And welcome to the interview portion of this episode of The VO Meter. It’s our social media roundtable, and we’re going to be talking about how each of our guests use social media to help their career and maybe in some other ways. Now, the way I came about this topic was actually because of one of our guests.
Melissa was doing a video of her own thanking people for their inspiration and being able to see their life stories through the use of social media. And I thought, that’s really cool. I like the way you phrased that because it’s kind of the same way I view it as visiting my friends and getting a window into their life and their careers.
And I think each of you have done that pretty well in your own way, while also promoting your careers. So Sean, might you introduce each of our guests, please?
Absolutely. So to my left, you guys can’t tell because we are in a video conference right now. We have audio engineer and demo producer and all around awesome guy, Uncle Roy Yokelson.
How are you doing, Uncle Roy?
Good, how are you Sean? Hey Paul, thank you for having me on here.
Absolutely, it’s great to see you. It’s been a while. Up next, we have Melissa Moran, Florida based talent.
And she actually inspired the idea for this episode. So we’re so happy to have her on. Thank you so much for being here, Melissa.
Thank you. It is an honor to be here with you guys and guests.
Aw, shucks, we’re not that big. Our reputation precedes us, Paul. Anyways, and last but certainly not least, Miss Ally Murphy, UK talent, who’s actually gonna be in my neck of the woods sooner rather than later.
So Ally, thank you for joining us today.
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely. So Paul, why don’t you go ahead and take it away with the first question?
Sure, so as I said, all of you have inspired me to sort of come up with this episode because I love the way you each use social media in your own special way, whether it’s talking about how to be an air hostess, whether it’s talking about how to do motion capture, whether it’s talking about the bagel you ate on Bagel Thoys Days. I really love the way you mix those things in to the way you promote your own work as well. So let’s talk about how each of you use social media, either personally or your career, or how you combine both.
Why don’t we start with Melissa?
Okay, yeah. I think I started out as a radio host. And so I was taught from the very beginning of my career.
Well, when I started my career, internet’s wasn’t a big deal. But as it progressed, I knew what a powerful tool it was and how, you know, in radio, you want to make everyone your best friends. That’s how you talk to people.
And that’s how you should portray yourself on social media as well. Everyone’s your friends. This is a big family.
So how would you talk to your family? Well, that you like, hopefully. So that’s how I treat it.
I want to share special moments in my life. I want to share what I’m doing. Hey, what are you doing?
And try to stay as positive as possible, because I think that’s important too. You can’t avoid negative situations in your life, but I also believe in the power of influence and I don’t want to bring my negativity to someone else either.
Okay, anyone else have any thoughts?
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I’m exactly the same. I started using social media before I got into full-time VO, so when I was an air hostess.
So for me, it was just a way of keeping in touch with people from all over the world and sharing images or stories and trying to be funny and that sort of thing. And when I became VO full-time, it was just a great way of me to continue to do that, but with clients and with new VO friends and from people from America, which has been fantastic because I’ve got some great friends over there now. So I think social media can be a great thing for just connecting with people.
That’s what it should be. It’s a social thing. It’s making connections.
You know, old school back in the day when voiceovers would show up at the studio and you got to shake hands and have coffee and be with people. And it’s the one thing sort of disconnect with everybody being at their home studio. We’re not together.
We’re electronically connected. And so through social media, that does help. It’s why I have my VO BBQ and 150 voiceover people show up just to hang out and shake their hand and pat them on the back.
So the reason I connected with voiceover people is just these are my true friends. And they’re coming over to see me and have my coffee. It doesn’t, you know, we shouldn’t worry about, oh, gee, do you think the radio spot’s gonna turn out okay?
Of course it is. It really was, who do you wanna hang out with? And my social media, you know, many people have a separate, and I have a separate Antlion Productions Facebook page, but I don’t really use it in the right way because I wanna be friends with everybody.
So my personal page has everything and my branding, the Bagel Thursday and all those silly things that we do. And I love it when people come up there and they go, oh yeah, I had an everything bagel, you know, because we’re friends, you know, and we have our shtick to talk about, you know.
It’s really interesting that you mentioned the sort of neglecting your business page, Uncle Roy, because it’s a trend that I’ve seen happen a lot in the last couple of years, where at first everyone’s like, oh, I’ve got to have both, got to have both. And then people just, like you said, they neglect the other one. And people tend to resonate more with an individual person than a business.
So it’s a really interesting thing. And so you definitely have to be more considerate of what you post because you are hoping to gain future clients. And if you say anything too controversial or something like that, you could be shooting yourself in the foot.
But it’s really interesting how this is becoming sort of a one-stop shop for representing you.
Also too many people, you know, I mean, we’re all on there maybe a little too much. Yes, it’s a time sucker and you have to behave yourself and kind of ration your time. And it’s a little different for me because if I’m on there, somebody’s gonna hit me up and say, hey, my scarlet doesn’t work, whatever.
But just to go on there and like everybody’s posts, you know, like to associate yourself with people, just, you know, they’ll see, oh, oh, so-and-so liked so-and-so. Ah, that’s a little, that’s a little juvenile, I don’t know.
I think you’ve got to make genuine connections. That’s the point. Like you don’t just go on and like everything so that you look like your name’s going out there or comment for the sake of commenting.
You’ve got to be genuine and be a friend. I mean, no one wants to sit next to the guy in the pub that’s just going, yeah, I did that. Yeah, I did that.
And yeah, I did that. They want to sit and have a genuine conversation. So if you’re part of that conversation, great.
If you’re not, you don’t have to be a part of everything. I think that’s probably key as well.
Wonderful. Yeah, it’s very easy to have a one-sided megaphone conversation on Facebook. But you’re right.
And I mean, for me, because Facebook was sort of like my inside look into the industry and the people who worked in it. I used it as a research tool, basically. Just found out who all the, basically who are the specialists, how I found out about Uncle Roy and other people like that.
And like I said, I spent a long time lurking before I started asking questions and then commenting and stuff like that. And then people are like, oh, okay, this guy’s new, but he’s not dumb or he’s willing to put in the work. And then once I showed that, I don’t know, I think it’s done wonders for my reputation and networking with people in the VO industry.
So I’m really happy with that.
You did it right. Yeah.
Yeah, I’m glad.
Thank you. Lurk first. Don’t ask too many stupid questions that have already been asked because…
Use the search function.
Yeah, Roy, just to back that up, I was about to say the exact same thing. Really, you can see the people who do it right. And that’s the difference, isn’t it?
And that’s why the guests we have here are here, because I feel like you guys do all do it right. And hopefully, you feel the same about me, because I can be obnoxious on social media every once in a while like everybody else. But the key is to have that balance of genuine personality, like Ally said, and then also being able to create real friendships.
And I feel like that’s really happened. I mean, Sean and I started this podcast without ever meeting one another. We actually just started recording and didn’t meet until the third episode.
And I think we’ve gotten better probably since we have spent some time together in person. But if you do it right, you can develop a real friendship over social media as well.
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s about building those relationships, whether that’s with other VOs, whether that’s learning, whether that’s building a relationship with your client.
You just gotta be good peoples.
Excellent. So that’s a great way to segue into our next point because we’ve already touched on how useful it’s been as networking within our own industry and either learning more about it or building relationships with people that you’re interested in working with. But how has social media helped or hurt your business directly?
Anyone wanna take that?
Well, I think I’ve definitely seen, it’s been a long game with social media. I think a lot of people go and think, if I put one post about how awesome I am, all the clients are gonna come to me. And it doesn’t necessarily work like that.
But if you put your brand out there authentically and have a good mix of this is what I do for a living, and also this is who I am as a human, and reach out and make these connections with people. I’ve had clients come up to me because, I saw what you did on social media, and will you be able to do that for me? Or even in the last week, I’ve had two different clients mention two things, one from Twitter, one from Instagram that they saw on my social media, and it led to different conversations.
It’s actually how I’ve now transitioned into doing some onscreen stuff because of things that my VO clients have seen on Instagram. They were like, will you do some onscreen stuff for us? So, you can use that, but I think it is a long game and you can’t just go full on thinking you’re gonna get a gig just from doing two posts on Instagram and liking a few things.
But it’s a great tool for just connecting with people.
You know, when I do, whether it’s coaching or tech or a demo, and people appreciate what I’ve done, and I’m just crazy generous with my time, and almost to a fault. And I’ll say, all right, look, can you just write something nice and put it on Facebook so everybody knows? And so it’s not free advertising because I’ve given my time for it.
And so people will usually write nice things and then other people will jump in, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The only negative thing that I’ve seen is, you know, and it’s on my business page where people can rate you. Somebody, a friend of mine, why did she give me four stars?
What did I do wrong? And one crazy person, and it’s very deep and I can’t get rid of it, one crazy person who I gave a ton of time and then she wasn’t happy, I gave her all her money back, wrote this one star review and you can’t get rid of it. So if you go to Ant Land Productions, I’m 4.8 and I don’t think anybody we know would give me a four point anything.
It’s just stupid.
You’ll never make Valedictorian now.
No, I’ll never make Man of the Year. It was terrible. I’ll never win the Unicorn Award.
It’s okay, it’s okay. I know who I am anyway.
Well that’s a great point is that you know who you are and that’s the image that you present on social media. You know what you’re getting. Sorry to interrupt, Paul.
What were you going to say?
I was going to move to Melissa. Melissa, you, at least in my mind, I mostly see your personal stuff on Facebook, which I think is just hilarious when you have your sort of snarky rants. But how has social media helped your business?
Oh, tremendously. So I’m sure what you’ve all seen at this point is the industry, whether you’re in strictly voice over or even on screen or audio books, the various niches in the VO industry, it can be very small. And you don’t even realize who sees what, and maybe they’re responding, maybe they’re not, but they’re seeing it.
So this could work for or against you. Now, fortunately, I think most of what I’ve done has worked for me by staying positive. But I’ve heard some stories about people posting about authors or stuff they’ve written that have become horror stories and kind of follow them around because the author industry is very small and they all have their own Facebook groups and all that.
So that’s just something to avoid, common sense wise. But for sure, I mean, I try to stay personal, because going back to the point where Roy and Sean talking about the business Facebook page, I felt like that got very, okay, Melissa is talking about her kid and fun stuff. And every now and then I’ll sprinkle in some of my regular audiobook stuff here.
But when I got to my business page, I felt like now I’m selling something. Now I’m that person, right? So when you do the personal and then every now and then you add a little bit of like, oh, by the way, this is what I’m doing, I think it counts more, you know what I’m saying?
Yeah, there’s a distancing, like you said, you’re like, you’re no longer just a person, you’re a corporation, pretty much. And it’s in your best interest to try and sell your product. But that’s really great.
Thank you.
And you become more approachable that way. I’ve contacted a lot of authors through Facebook and they’re very responsive.
Very cool. That’s interesting to hear.
So it actually transitions nicely into our third question, which is, how has your use of social media evolved over the years? And I’ll start off with my own experience in this one, because as some of you know, I haven’t been in the VO game that long, certainly less than some of the people on this call, just about three years, almost exactly, in earnest, trying to pursue it. So what I decided was, and obviously I had some social media accounts before those three years ago.
So what I decided when I decided to get into voiceover was to cut off any personal use of social media almost entirely. I had a Twitter account that I very rarely used, but I made a point to go in and delete everything that was there up until day one of my voiceover career. So I only use Twitter for the career, and whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know, but that’s how I decided to adjust.
And Facebook, very similarly, I do a few, sort of like Melissa said, I do a few posts about my kids, and maybe if I’m having a nice day at the beach. But other than that, nothing political, nothing business-related, or sorry, nothing personally related, except for those few things, it’s all business. And like Sean said, I’ve sort of abandoned the business page because I do everything on the personal page.
And I’d like to hear some thoughts on how people think that approach is good or bad.
I nearly did the very same thing. I mean, I’ve kind of been full-time for a couple of years now. And I thought, oh, I got to get rid of everything that I did before, otherwise people won’t take me seriously.
And then I kind of had to step back and think, actually, most of it’s just who I am anyway. I was an air hostess and, you know, I’ve made mistakes in my life and had fun. And so unless it was like really like a drunk pic or something that I think, yeah, maybe nobody wants to see that.
And there wasn’t that many of those, then I kind of left it in because I thought that’s part of me. And it’s a story that a lot of people, sometimes people can connect with, they say, oh, hey, I flew there or I did this or I know a friend who’s a cabin crew member as well. So sometimes having a part of your history in your real life can actually just help form you as a whole person instead of just being one business sort of thing.
I mean, I’m the same. I kind of have not really posted on my business Facebook page for ages because nobody’s listening. Nobody’s watching there really anymore.
My Facebook is just actually really just for people that I know or who I’m in the industry with rather than clients. And then my Instagram mainly and my Twitter to an extent is client based. But still, we are our brand, aren’t we?
So I guess we have to be the people that we are and you can’t do much about what you’ve done.
Nice. And I love that sort of ownership of your background experience and stuff like that because I feel like a lot of talent, they don’t want to be perceived as amateurs. Like you said.
And so they’re like, oh, forget all this ever happened and or like hide it and stuff like that. But you never know when it might come up. Like, it might help you build that connection or they’re like, hey, can you play an air hostess?
Like we could use one like that, you know, so you never know.
Absolutely. And then, you know, everyone started at some point and even, you know, I’m sure 20 years in the future with whatever social media is going on then, you know, will will have grown on continually learning and continually growing and social media be the same, I’m sure.
You’ll have to take down that drunk picture for 20 years from now. They may not, you know…
I don’t know what you mean, Uncle Roy.
I guess I used LinkedIn more in the beginning, forgetting about like MySpace and all that stuff because I don’t even remember what I might have done there. But as far as searching out for business or for connections, if anybody wants ancient history on me, because I’ve only been doing this like three years like you guys, 40, 42, they can go to my website and they can go to my IMDB page and find out what was my history and my career path and all that kind of stuff. LinkedIn I find very useful and I know a lot of people find me and search for me and my services on LinkedIn, so I think that’s very good.
And then the evolution of, I mean, Bagel Thursdays goes back to when the kids were little, every Thursday I’d go out and buy, you know, the kids would get a tail of ham and egg on a roll and all that, not bagel, and so I just decided to make that part of my branding. And social media, every Thursday we just put it up, check in tomorrow, see what kind of bagel we had. That’s it.
I think what’s important, like we say, the LinkedIn really worked for you, is that not every social media platform is going to work for everybody. And that’s going to be really individual down to the way that you like to work yourself. And I think a lot of people put a lot of pressure on themselves going, oh my God, I have to do Instagram now because that’s the thing.
But I don’t know how to take a picture and I don’t like doing it. If you don’t like doing it, then it’s not good for you. You’ve got to enjoy doing it because unfortunately, it is part of our businesses.
So find something that works for you. There’s loads of platforms out there and there will be one that will resonate with you.
Once a week, I’ll check in with Twitter and just like somebody’s thing or repost or something. But that’s not one that specifically works for me.
Awesome. I’m so glad you brought that up, Ally and Uncle Roy. I was curious, what are your guys’ preferred social media platforms and do you approach them differently?
Well, I’m all about, you know, Facebook. I had to shut it off now because if it was on now, you know, it would be blinging all over the place. So just by leaving it open, not that I’m sitting there necessarily connecting with everybody, but if somebody sees that I’m available, that’s the one that works for me.
So that’s my story. I’m sticking to it.
I’m mostly Facebook, but I’m training myself to do other things. I’m currently in a workshop to learn Instagram. Like Ally was saying, sometimes there are certain ones that are more natural or more user-friendly.
Like Facebook has just always been around, so that’s the go-to, and for a lot of people, it’s the go-to. So you kind of rely on that. But as business owners, we also have to kind of go with the times and where are the clients going?
So for me right now, I see that place as being Instagram. So am I moving all of my posts there? No.
It’s probably about still Facebook 80%, Instagram 20. And maybe that’ll shift. Maybe it won’t.
We’ll see where the trends go. But I think it’s really important to stay on top of that and to keep challenging yourself.
I’m definitely using more Instagram at the moment. I found, well, Facebook is really just, it’s not really for business for me. Twitter, I found to be so negative recently.
And there’s been so much, there’s so much political stuff and arguments and people just seem so ready to attack each other that I felt really… Icky. That’s the only way I can describe it.
It felt really toxic. It didn’t feel creative. It didn’t feel enjoyable.
So I’ve kind of stepped a little way from Twitter, or even though I know some of my clients are on there, I’ll occasionally put things once a week or something. But with Instagram, it tends to be all positivity and creativity. And I really like that.
So I’m kind of putting a lot of energy into Instagram at the moment.
Great. Where does YouTube fit in? It’s not exactly a social media network, but to me, it has the same sort of qualities.
And I know Sean has used that to read it.
I would definitely consider that social media. Like, I mean, that’s probably what’s built up my global reputation more than anything was my YouTube channel.
But you just introduced yourself and gave yourself a pat on the back.
Sean, how do you use it? I’ve never been to your YouTube channel, but tell me about it. How do you as a voiceover artist use it?
A lot of it is equipment reviews and just kind of like dumbing down a lot of the scary audio stuff that was intimidating for people. And I’m like, look, at the time I wasn’t a tech geek, totally now. But I was just like, yes, this isn’t that difficult and it doesn’t have to be expensive.
I just came from a place of wanting to help people. And that’s probably what resonated with people the most. And I still want to do that.
So I will continue to make videos to help people.
And I’ve been trying to ramp up my video content as well, basically following Sean’s model. So I’ve done a couple of tutorials and then a couple of sort of rants from the booth. I call them the VO confessionals, where whatever’s on my mind that day, I just start ranting about in the middle of the day.
And people do seem to resonate with people. They do seem to reply and make comments on it. So it’s something I was curious if anyone else has used to their advantage.
That’s a really interesting way of getting creative with it, though. I never really thought about it. I’ve kind of put my demos and stuff on YouTube and if I have it on screen, any video stuff will go on there.
But actually, you could do some really fun stuff with it, I guess, if you know who to reach out to with it.
I want to be Sean when I grow up. People have been saying, like, why don’t you produce some videos about all your shortcuts and all your stuff?
Videos are tough. It’s a lot of work. My videos could definitely use some improvement in the quality department, but you have to learn a lot about lighting and positioning the camera and all that stuff.
I have two YouTube channels, one that’s me and one that’s AntLand, and a lot of it’s just archival commercials that I’ve worked on or films that I’ve been in. And the other thing is SoundCloud. You got audio-only content.
Yes, you can put up a graphic and put it up on YouTube, and the YouTube is a huge, much bigger database, I guess, than SoundCloud. And the other thing I don’t like about SoundCloud is when my clip is done, it randomly plays some other thing that has nothing. It’s like, I don’t want to hear somebody else’s whatever, you know, if it’s another one of mine, okay, but I don’t know if it’s random, I don’t know how they do that.
But it’s the other way I get my content out there, whether it’s killer demos or audio books that I’m working on, samples, SoundCloud works for me.
I think it’s all about… you can use it for showcasing your talents as well, which is… not a lot of people know everything that you do, and that’s a good way of showing it.
I did something silly the other day because I burnt my foot doing something stupid. And then I had an hour to kill between clients, so I made a video, a public awareness video about how not to burn your foot on the oven, and posted it to social media, and it got quite a few funny responses. I mean, it was only silly.
I don’t think anyone… I’m not going to get any work from it, but if people are looking for different ways of using social media, just have fun and play around and use your talents and see what comes out of it.
And it has to be genuine. You know, I’ve tried vlogging before, and it was kind of a failure because you see the famous vloggers and how much freaking production they put into these things. And I think I went into it like that, and I just got so overwhelmed, and I turned into someone I’m kind of really not, that I just sort of gave up.
So if you want to try your hand ed videos, start small. Do something like Ally did. That’s perfect.
If it’s something that shows off your personality, who you are, and you have a little fun while doing it, people are going to respond to that because people can sniff out fake, like, like you wouldn’t believe.
Sean doesn’t know how to be fake, so that kind of works for him.
I don’t.
And Mark Scott is very good at these video podcasts or vlogs or whatever you want to call them, you know, his personality comes right through you. What you see is what you get, you know.
And like we were saying before, like if, don’t do it from a place like, oh, I have to do this, everything’s doing this, like don’t have it strictly as a means for self-gain. Like it’s, it’s the opposite. You have to come from a place of wanting to give.
You have to either like show your personality or share something that you think is cool. Or like I said, just come from a genuine place of wanting to help someone.
I think that’s important as well to remember that you don’t have to post every single day or three times a day. There’s a lot of people that say, oh, you know, you must connect at 10 a.m. and then 5 p.m. and all this stuff. But no, if I don’t feel like anything posting that day or just not in the mood or haven’t done anything that interesting, I don’t do it because it wouldn’t be genuine.
And people can spot those posts where you’re trying to force yourself to, oh, here’s me behind the microphone again or something like that. You can’t keep doing that. So just do it when it’s organic and do it when you have fun.
Because people that have, if thousands of followers or have a really good revenue from social media and they only post once every three weeks or so, so do whatever feels good for you. Don’t feel like you have to follow any rules when it comes to it.
And it takes practice, you know, like just like learning anything else. You have to find your, like find your platform, find your voice, find what works for you.
Really great point. So that brings us to our next question. We’ve thrown some out already, but what are some pro tips or cautionary tales some of you have in using social media?
Maybe something really stupid you did that you wish you didn’t do on social media.
Well, never post drunk. That’s a basic rule, same as texting your ex. Never do it whilst you’ve had a drink.
I always think, I always give myself like a minute after, before I post, I’m like, don’t want to do this. I’m not when it comes to like, obviously, when it comes to business stuff. But you know, if you’re doing something that’s a bit maybe not you or a bit out there, just think, but am I happy with this?
And then go for it if you are, but yeah, have fun. But don’t go, don’t go weird. And don’t go political.
Absolutely. It’s really easy to misinterpret text. So be sure like if someone can misinterpret something, they probably will.
So keep that in mind.
I will, you know, if somebody’s texting me and it’s back and forth, back and forth, it’s I put my phone number and it’s like, look, call me. And I can’t deal with, you know, whether it’s that I’m driving or ain’t nobody got time for that. Just texting, texting.
And I can’t hear your inflection, whatever. And you can’t tell you can’t hear I’m being genuine. I’m just trying to help you.
I just had that somebody sent me a demo. Oh, I spent $2,500 and I don’t know what I got. Well, let’s talk about it.
You know?
Yeah, that’s a big one, actually. And I’ll throw in a situation I had, actually, where I was commenting on Tremaine Mosley’s post, who, some of you may know, a talent also out of Florida. And he had landed a job with the National Aquarium here in Baltimore, where I live.
And my comment was, geez, Trey, why did you just come to my house and kick me in the nuts?
And a lot of our friends and colleagues posted, boy, that guy’s angry. What’s wrong with him? And thankfully, because I know Trey pretty well, he himself put up a comment saying, Paul’s just being funny.
We’re good buds. Seriously, it’s okay. But you have to be careful because tone does not come across in print.
Well, they’d also have to know you and your sense of humor, quote unquote.
Yeah, exactly.
I think you also have to be careful of… We surround ourselves with like-minded people, typically. So you get really comfortable in that bubble.
And that’s when you have a tendency to say something that could skew a particular way that others may not agree with. I mean, you know what I’m getting at. Anything political, anything a little bit off-color.
You may surround yourself by like-minded people, but maybe your clients aren’t thinking the same way. So you don’t want to isolate them. So just be careful.
Don’t get too comfortable in your own little bubble. Very true.
I think an awful lot of people forget that your clients can read everything you put on social media. So if you’re happy to lose a job over something that you think is hilarious, but your client might not, then fine. But you really have to think about not just now, but in the future.
Your clients’ research, especially if you’re doing anything that might be big profile, any big profile gigs you get out there, the producers and the production teams are going to be looking at your social media and making sure that you’re not going to embarrass them at some point in the future. So just be mindful of that.
Before you hit that send button, maybe reread it and think, okay, what are people going to think about this? Maybe I better edit out this phrase. Maybe I better just not send it.
Or have a friend take a look. Some of my friends do that. They’ll send me a post and say, I was thinking of putting this on LinkedIn.
Does it sound okay? And I don’t know why they seek my advice. What do I know?
But it’s a good way to get an opinion.
You fool them good, Paul. Now lots of people send me, or they’ll send me, hey, I was going to send this email. I wasn’t happy about such and such.
And I’ll like rewrite it in a more polite way or more friendly way. And they’ll usually go with mine. Yeah, so yeah, call a friend.
So one thing I wanted to talk about a little bit since we’re on the topic of cautionary tales, one thing that’s been a real issue in recent years is talent talking about projects that might still be under NDA. And another sort of, like first off, that’s huge no-no and could make you lose clients, make you lose current clients and future clients. But even talent who understand that, you still see a lot of like, book this big new gig that I can’t talk about.
How do you guys feel about that kind of vague posting like that?
I think it’s a bit gratuitous. Like you’re kind of doing it to go, hey everybody, I’m awesome. I can’t tell you about it, but I’m awesome.
Like you’re gonna have that time. It’s delayed gratification you need here. You will have that time in the future where you just say, look, I am honored to work on, I have worked on this project and it’s out now and I’m so excited for you guys to see it.
But when you book the gig, it’s not gonna do anybody any good to go, I booked it, I’ve got the job. Because I’ve heard of people losing it even just with those three words, I booked it. So it’s really not worth it just for that.
I can really think about why you’re posting. Are you just posting because you’re so excited and you wanna tell everybody, call your family up, call your friends up and tell them there. But if you risk losing your job just because you just feel too excited to get it out there, it’s not the right priority really.
It’s really difficult, isn’t it? Because we do this in a small booth, most of us. And so when something exciting happens, we have like our immediate family, we can tell, and stuff happens where you just wanna shout it from the rooftops because we have like zero social interaction, like physical.
So yeah, it is exactly what Ally says. It’s gratuitous and it’s just all about ego, but you gotta kind of check that out at the door because it gets really dangerous and it kind of, you know, and people see through that. They’re like, oh, yeah, they’re trying to, they’re trying to show how big they are now.
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s, and like a lot of people get really excited. I think even Tom Holland just listed like dozens of spoilers about the new Infinity War thing in an interview. And like you said, so we’re desperate for that human connection.
And as we’re actors, we crave validation and we never get it. So like we want to say like, yes, my talent got me this wonderful gig with this great client, which I lost because I posted about it on Facebook. So like you said, like keep it in your own circles.
Once it’s out there, it’s out there and out of your hands. You don’t control who will see it. So keep that in mind.
Plus it goes back to like we said about being genuine. There are people out there in any business or walk of life that will post about their accomplishments so much that it becomes overbearing and almost nauseating to people. And we all know those people where you think, oh gosh, again?
And you just don’t want to hear about it anymore.
Yeah, I tend to downplay some of my older accomplishments or whatever. I belong to what used to be MCAI, Media Communications Association International, which is now called Cinetech Media Professionals. And everybody gives their 15 second elevator pitch going around the room.
And I’ll say, if it has anything to do with audio voiceovers, I’m your guy and somebody will jump up and say, yeah, but what about those films you did, whatever. Okay, yeah, that too. But this is who I am today.
This is what I can help you with.
Well, that brings us to our last question, actually, Roy. We’ve all done things in the past on social media and in our careers, but where do each of you see social media going in the future? Do you think we’ll have the same tools we have available now in the next five years?
Or will something else come up and take its place?
We’ll all be in outer space.
Well, what I’m really mad about is when I post an event, Facebook shuts me down after I invite like 350 people and says, you can’t invite anybody else. Well, why? If you invite 800, then 150 will show up.
So I need to be able to invite more people. It’s a silly, I have no idea where it’s going in the future. It is ever-changing, I should get more into Twitter and Instagram and see how else can I spread the word.
I’ve maxed out what I can do on Facebook. Everybody knows how to get me and whatever. Next.
I don’t know, that’s the beauty of it. Who would have thought 15 years ago that we’d all be able to chat with people 4,000 miles away immediately and share photos and wish each other happy birthday without even realizing it’s their birthday. It’s a wonderful thing.
And I think, I’m hoping the way forward would be more creative and less negative, but I guess we’ll just have to see the way the world goes.
Yeah, who knows? Let’s just all support each other in no matter what social venue presents itself. And let’s all keep going to the conferences, because you know what?
The other thing about social media is it’s hilarious when people meet each other for the first time after only connecting through social media, because it’s awkward as hell. It’s so much fun, but we’re all in the same boat. So no matter where we go, let’s just all try to connect in all kinds of ways and keep it fun.
Yeah, wonderful points, everyone. Like we were saying, or intimating anyways, is don’t forget what social media is for. It’s to socially interact with each other.
So be genuine, make real connections, and find whatever medium works for you. So thank you guys for coming. This has been a wonderful, fun, very fun discussion.
And I hope you all, or I wish you all the best of luck in your social media campaigns and in your voiceover careers.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.
Before we go, why don’t you each tell us where you can be found if you want to be found to be hired.
antlandproductions.com and all over Facebook, of course.
Okay, Melissa?
melissamoran.com, on Instagram, Melissa.Moran.VO. And just find me on Facebook. I don’t know, I’m like.1422, burp, burp, burp, burp.
Just find Melissa Moran.
Fantastic. Ally?
My website is allymurphy.co.uk. Ally’s two Ls and one Y. And on Instagram, I’m at AllymurphyVoice and the same on Twitter.
All right. And don’t forget to check out our new website. Just launched, www.vometer.com.
And we have a business page too that we never use.
That’s for your future. That’s where you’re growing and going and growing.
Exactly. Thanks again, everybody, for joining us and enjoy the rest of your week.
Thank you, guys.
Have a good one.
That was so much fun. I mean, it wasn’t even… It was truly a social event, right?
I mean, it was just getting friends together and just picking their brains about their expertise. And I can’t thank our guests enough for joining us. Uncle Roy has been a long time friend and mentor of me.
Ally Murphy, it was so wonderful to talk with you in person. You can’t… I hope you could hear the quotation marks.
And then Melissa Moran. It was really, really fun to get to know you. And so I hope you guys found that beneficial.
It was really interesting learning about the different social media platforms and the certain do’s and don’ts on how to navigate each one.
Yeah, I want to thank everybody again for participating. It went exactly as I hoped it would. As I said during the intro, the inspiration was some of Melissa’s quirky posts, and everyone else contributed so much to the conversation as well.
One thing I hadn’t thought about was Instagram. I know people are talking about using that, and it’s something I probably should use, but man, it’s intimidating to me for some reason.
Me too. I mean, if you’re not like a visually, or like a visually intelligent person, it can be a difficult medium. But it’s important because that’s the direction that a lot of media is going.
I take a lot of pictures, but it’s just something I don’t think about regularly. I was smart enough to secure my own name a long time ago.
Everyone takes a lot of pictures, but so many people need to share it with the world.
I was smart enough to secure my own name with an account, like, I think four years ago now. But to date, I have a single post, and it’s a picture of me and my daughter at a baseball game. Four years in one post.
Now it’s got like five billion likes, and it’s just like, he’s such a… He’s a savant. He’s only got that one picture.
I hope so. I was hoping Uncle Roy would talk more about MySpace, because I know he had a huge page when he was, when it was back in the day, I’ll bet.
He had stock, I bet. Before we go, we’d like to thank our sponsors, and we’d like to thank you guys for bearing with this on this overly promotional episode. We promise it’ll be slightly less so in the future.
But anyways, thank you again to voiceactorwebsites.com and the Global Voice Acting Academy.
Podcast demos.com and vocabwiththego.com.
Yeah, I’m very excited about these sponsorships and thank you again. Coming up next month, we have Paul and Ken Foster at the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference, or MAVO. I unfortunately cannot make it this year, but Ken, thank you so much for going in my stead.
I know it’s going to be an incredible experience for everyone and I will jealously watch. And hopefully you guys can Zoom or Budogo call me in there so I can at least vicariously enjoy the experience through you.
Yeah, and if you haven’t registered yet, you can still join us. Go to www.midatlanticvo.com and sign up and you’ll see us at the conference. And then following that, we have two exciting episodes coming up in what will be, let’s see, I guess the end of November and December.
Wow, I can’t believe we’re booking out that far. We’ll have Voice Over Business Coach and Voice Over Talent himself, Mark Scott. And then the founders and curators of the Voice Over Collective, Brad Venable and Tim Friedlander will be joining us as well.
So we’re excited for both of those.
All right, so I’m looking forward to those great episodes. I hope you are too. Come join us next month and have a great day, guys.
Bye, everybody.
Thanks for listening to the VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com. Thank you.

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello everybody, and welcome to episode 30 of The VO Meter, our special edition episode, post-Otakon 2018. Woo!
Oh yeah!
Woo!
Very cool. So unfortunately, this year, I didn’t get to go to Otacon, even though I love Comic-Cons and Anime-Cons and all things con, but luckily we had the very talented New Jersey talent, Chris Dattoli, in my stead. So he’s actually joining us to talk and share his experiences from the con.
So welcome, Chris.
Thank you, Sean, and thank you, Paul. Happy to be here.
Yeah, thank you so much for sitting in for me and all the, I’m sure it was, you really twisted your arm to go.
Yeah, you know, I swear, you called me up and said, listen, I really need help. Can you please help me? Sean deserted me.
And I said, all right, I guess. Anime, games, why not? I mean, you know.
Yeah, well, I am a big flake, so thank you for doing that.
That is kind of what happened. And it’s even worse than we expected because I got there and sort of told Chris, by the way, I can only be here for like two hours, so it’s all you. And that’s kind of what happened.
You thought I was acting.
No, that was true. You got the whole experience.
So I only ended up being able to do three interviews and Chris did the rest along with James Brown, who we actually pulled in on the spot to help us out with some too. So the fourth voice you’ll hear that you may not recognize is James Brown, another voice actor from New York, who we interviewed. And then after the interview…
Not the R&B singer. What’s that? Yeah, not that one.
He’ll talk about that. But we interviewed him as sort of an attendees perspective, as opposed to the special guests that we interviewed the rest of the time. And then I said, do you want to stay?
We’ll see if we get you a press pass. And they said yes. And then I left even earlier than I expected and James and Chris took over from there and it was great.
That’s awesome. We’re building our own little troupe of special VO interview forces.
Special correspondents, so to speak.
In the field. We gotta think of a cool name for you guys. Something with special ops in it.
We’ll get to the drawing board with that.
Yeah, it has to be something that has a pun involved given the name of the show. So we’ll work on that.
Something to do with, all right, everyone stare at their audio equipment until something comes to mind.
So we’ll get to the fabulous content we have from the show itself in a few minutes. But before we do that, we want to run through some current events. So let’s start with Chris, our special guest.
What’s been happening in your VO world?
Well, I’m keeping busy. I’m working on two video games right now. I actually just finished a series of new commercials that I actually signed on with the production team.
It’s actually, I think they dubbed it Jersey Baby, where I’m actually speaking as a baby in an Italian voice. It was really hard to bring up that accent to talk about different things. So that’s pretty fun.
New series will be released soon. I’m also gonna be flying out to California soon in a few weeks to work on my new commercial demo.
Very cool.
Yeah, and I actually had just completed because I had a bit of a speech impediment, so I actually spent months fixing that up, and I’m actually happy to say I corrected that, so I’m ready to take off flight with that.
And if you don’t mind, I think that’s, yeah, that’s an incredible story to hear that in there, because sometimes people will get discouraged if they have something like an obstacle, like a lisp or speech impediment. And as you’ll hear in some of the interviews, if you have those obstacles, you just gotta work around them. You just, like, don’t let it discourage you.
Try, and if this is important to you, you will find a way to work around it. So kudos to you for doing so, Chris.
Thank you, thank you.
Who are you working on the demo with, can you say?
Chuck Duran.
That’s not bad.
He actually did my, he did my first one, and I said, hey, I found out I have this impediment, you mind if I come back? He goes, yeah, absolutely, rock on.
I heard he knows what he’s doing.
He does.
Awesome, anything else you want to talk about?
Let’s see, gonna be working on with David Rosenthal soon with working on my characters demo as well. God actually was able to, by going to Oticon, I actually landed three audio books there.
Really?
Yeah, working on that, going to, if you sneak a side and go into like the dealer’s room and everything, just do a little technique that I call, ask about their product and then lo and behold, they mention, you know, hey, we had a voice actor. I’m like, oh, well, you know, I just happened to be a voice actor. And it goes, well, you look like the rock and roll type because I cosplayed Greg Universe from the TV show, Steven Universe.
Oh, nice, nice.
So, you know, it all played out. It goes like, you look like a hard rock guy. And like, I am, it goes, well, I need that type of voice.
And I’m like, well, here we go.
Perfect, man. Now that, like, voice talent and expert marketer. There you go.
And working at its finest.
That’s great. So, Sean, what have you been working on?
Very much same old, same old. Doing a lot of new projects for GVAA. We’re trying to, we’re going to have some cool new social media campaigns.
We’ve hired on some exciting new staff. We have Sarah Sherman for Disney VoiceCaster and voice director, becoming a new character coach for us. So that’s huge.
I just got to sit in on her animation audition technique workshop this weekend. It was a lot of fun, some great performances and some just excellent concise direction from Sarah. It’s always fun to see a great director in their element.
So that’s really cool. Other than that, just lots of cool, like just audition, audition, audition, e-learning, e-learning, e-learning, but the wheels are still turning. So that’s good.
Other than that, what about you, Paul?
Well, that’s awesome. You mentioned working with Sarah now. We’re actually gonna see her at MAVO when we do the episode from there in a couple of weeks.
Hopefully we’ll get some time with her. That reminds me, actually, I should probably talk to these people and ask them ahead of time if they wanna talk on tape, so to speak, or be recorded. I haven’t actually done that.
Yeah, you might wanna get their permission first. Before we bomb like steam, bombard them with microphones.
We know, the last time we were there, we did exactly that. We just sort of jumped in and grabbed people as they walked by, which worked, but isn’t necessarily the best way to prep a show as we’ve talked about.
Absolutely, and we can probably make some posts to the MAVO group. Like, hey, we’re going to have some correspondents there if you guys want to contribute your welcome to, just so they’re like, hey, what’s this big? Oh wait, you guys won’t…
I hope Vocal Booth to go is there because we can steal another thing from that.
Actually, I’ve already talked to them and they’re going to let us borrow one of their new VoMo’s. So I have to eventually get out to the warehouse to pick that up too, which reminds me of another thing I need to do before the show.
Love that, but I love mine so much, it’s starting to fall apart. Maybe I shouldn’t check it as often as I do.
Yeah, maybe.
Those guys have rough hands.
I’m gonna let that go. All right. So as far as…
Throwing you a line. As far as things I’m working on, the thrust of my work right now is one e-learning client who some of our listeners may have seen. I’ve been putting out this series of medical videos on YouTube and the response has been pretty good so far.
I’m not sure what this company does to market them, but several of them have over 1,000 views, 1,500 views, and I’m doing about five a week and they’re on just various topics that might be of interest to people who are looking up conditions they may have or may think they have, sort of self-diagnosing on the web. And I’ve got some traction marketing by basically quipping about them. So whenever I put it out on Twitter or Facebook, I make some ridiculous comment about the content.
So the one example was I did one on atopic dermatitis and I said, there’s a rash of causes of this disease. Make sure you follow the content to find out.
I’ve actually been loving that Paul, so thank you.
And I released one today where it was a play on the old line from Dean Wormer in Animal House where it was for streptococcal pharyngitis, which is a form of strep throat. And I said, swollen, itchy, and contagious is no way to go through life, son. Learn how to cure this disease.
To warm the strepococcal of your heart.
Exactly. But the response has been pretty good. Even just friends and neighbors around the area, when I see them, they’ll say, oh, I love that video you did on gonorrhea.
And I’ll think, is that a compliment?
Hey, people need to know sexual health is important.
Exactly. It is, yes. So that’s been a primary focus.
They’re giving me a ton of content and it’s been a pretty decent gig so far. I’ve done, I think, 20. And I have 30 more just sitting on my computer waiting for me to crank out, but I can only do so many at a time before my voice starts to tire out, but that’s the thrust of my work right now.
So one thing we want to talk about, current events-wise, is our new website. We’ve actually, this week, finally took the wraps off our new VO Meter website from voiceactorwebsites.com.
It’s super mobile-friendly.
Yeah, it’s super mobile-friendly now, and it’s not a pain in the butt, but the URL is the same. It’s www.vometer.com. Check it out when you get a chance.
Let us know what you think. We’ve really tried to streamline the content to make it more friendly for comments and questions, so please go there and follow the link for comments. We’d love to hear what you think about the show, or if you have any questions that you want to have answered on the show, we’d love to help.
Absolutely, questions, suggested topics, or if you’d like to contribute to some of our audio submissions, like the VO Meter shtick, please just let us know. We’d love to hear from you. So, that pretty much wraps up current events.
Before we get to the actual con footage, though, it’s time for…
Questionable Gear Purchase.
For today’s Questionable Gear Purchases, we’ve all got some great stories from in the field. And since you’re our guest, Chris, why don’t you start first?
Yeah, I’ll take the lead on that. So, as I’m all prepped and ready to go for Oticon, I got my Blue Raspberry all packed. I go to my hotel to set it up just to do a test run, and all I hear is a background ssss noise.
And I’m like, what the heck is that? So, I plugged it in. I thought maybe it was my computer.
Plugged in my friend’s computer. Plugged into a pad, into a tablet. Same thing.
So, I thought, this broke. Like, something’s wrong with it. And I’m like, well, this is great.
I guess I’ll just use my good, old-fashioned phone to record everything and no mic. Well, hope for the best. And I think you had the same problem with yours, right?
Sort of the same issue?
So, yeah, I had pretty much the same issue. Only a couple hours later, I showed up on Saturday where you had been there since Thursday night, right? When you got there?
Yep, was there since Thursday.
So, I plug in my Blue Raspberry and say, all right, here we go. And I get…
Kuh-kuh, kuh-kuh, kuh-kuh.
All in the files. And I thought to myself, oh, this actually happened a few weeks ago when I had it at the beach. I thought it was just a fluke, maybe the computer I was using at the beach, because this was a different one I had with me, and realized it was actually dead, because I did the same thing.
I plugged it in my phone and tried it and got the same results. So basically, we had two dead Blue Raspberries that we couldn’t use, and you used your phone for some of the interviews, I used mine for the rest, and that was the way we had a roll. So, did you ever have a resolution to your issue, Chris?
I did not. I actually saw someone posted something similar on one of the groups we were a part of, and they mentioned…
Wasn’t that me?
I think, yeah, it was you.
There’s some other dark-skinned Italian that mentioned having a problem with… So, I put that on the Facebook group, and our mutual friend of all of us, Mariel Nuvall, actually said, do you think it might be moisture in it? And I said, oh yeah, I did just have it at the beach.
So I actually took mine and put it in front of a fan for about six hours, and tried it again, and it did go away. So I think Mariel might have been onto something, that it might have been moisture in mine, and at least that’s cured it temporarily.
Well, that’s the irony of those kind of devices, because I mean, Blue very much markets that as a portable travel solution, but obviously you’re gonna be exposing into the elements more often, it’s gonna be bouncing around in a bag. So that could really affect the durability and shelf life of products like that. I mean, I had an Apogee mic for a while, and pretty early on, it developed this hiss, and I even spent the extra $25 for the travel kit and accessories or whatever, but apparently that’s not waterproof, because I was wearing it in a backpack one day while it was raining, and it totally got through the backpack and the travel kit.
Oh, I wouldn’t have even thought about that, wow.
Yeah, that, oof.
Yeah, so you gotta be careful. I mean, you might wanna put it in some kind of protective thing, or just not, who knows? It could have been a factory issue, or, I don’t know.
So, really sorry you guys had to go through that.
Yeah, well, luckily, I contacted support, and they’re working with me on it.
Oh, awesome, awesome. Yeah. Yeah, like I said, mine’s cured for the moment.
Hopefully, it doesn’t happen again. I am going back to the beach next week, and I’ll be sure to be more careful with, or at least leave it out and dry it out before I try to use it.
Put it in like a plastic bag with those little silica things. Yeah. Like the, yeah, the food dehydrators.
Yeah, I was just saying that. I feel like maybe a vacuum-sealed plastic bag or something.
I do have several of those silica packs from various mics I’ve purchased. As you know, I’ve had quite a few.
So Sean, do you have any questionable gear purchases this episode?
Questionable gear, like, well, in anticipation, I guess. As some people know, Centrance has finally released their mixer face, something that has been in development for almost four years. And I was actually one of the contributors to the original, I believe it was on Indiegogo, or like a Kickstarter-esque campaign.
I forget what the actual name for that type of… Crowdfunding, there we go. It was like a crowdfunding, that word.
Yeah, well, you know, you’re trying to put your…
Words are hard.
Words are hard. That’s why we read off scripts. But anyways, yeah, it took about four years to do, like the new device is actually quite different than the original designs.
And I remember, I was actually really looking for it, because it almost kind of had this cradle shape that you could actually put a phone that you were recording to on it, and you could secure it with some kind of Silcon band or whatever. But now I realize that it took so long to create that phones will never be that small again. So it would not actually fit in that space.
So I’m like, ah. So they decided to kind of move the more mixer-esque controls and dials onto the top of the unit and make it more tactile in that way, which is cool. A lot of people complain that they don’t always like the, they would rather have something more hands-on and tactile than always adjusting everything in software.
And of course, if you’re in a VO booth, your mic and your interface might be a couple feet from your computer. So it is nice to have something right there. So as you can tell, I have mixed feelings about the unit.
The people who’ve gotten it so far are pretty happy.
Why do you not have yours is the question. Why do you not have yours, Zach? Because I’ve heard several broadcasts, I think VOBS mentioned it, where they said, so everyone who ordered one, who pre-ordered one, has one now in their hands.
Bo Weaver and Harry Legg actually showed some positive reviews for it on that. They’re both big promo talent. But I had actually asked them to delay mine, because they had mentioned that they had a more advanced unit than what was currently available, because it had an included stereo mic accessory and an internal SD card.
So you could be a true standalone unit. You’d literally just need to plug a mic into it and then record to the SD card, and then like true portability. You don’t even need a phone or a tablet device.
And so I was like, all right, I can do that. And then I wrote to them, I was like, oh, everything’s released. When’s the new one gonna come out?
They’re like, oh, it’s gonna be a couple months. And based on the track record, I was like, might as well just take a bird in the hand.
Yeah, well hopefully you’ll get it soon.
No offense to Sentrence, I mean, they were trying to create a new technology basically, and they all had all sorts of production issues, like with Apple changing the IOS and the hardware and then various companies not wanting to do the production that they asked for, so I don’t know, it’s a struggle. So when I get it, I’m sure I’ll be happy with it, but it’ll probably be the redheaded stepchild of my interfaces.
All right, well we’ll get to our fabulous Oticon content in just a second after these fine words from our sponsor.
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All right, now let’s get to the interviews. I’m gonna start with Masaya first. He was probably one of my favorite interviewers.
It’s really interesting to hear the viewpoint how voice actors record from Japan versus America. So let’s get right to it.
So just a quick introduction. We’re here with Todd Haberkorn at Otagon 2018. Chris Dattoli is joining me, just like last year.
Hello, hello.
And we’re gonna talk about voiceover. So our first question, Todd, if you don’t mind, tell us how you got started in the business.
Well, voiceover was kind of the last thing that came along. It started on stage and then went to on camera and the different variations of that. And then voiceover kind of crept in because I never thought it was an option.
I didn’t know that VO was… My brain was never in that mode and I didn’t know it was a thing. So when I was watching cartoons, I didn’t even think that actors voiced that.
I just thought that they find that mouse and they find that duck and they find it and then they go and they put them in a studio and then they do their thing. So then when VO was an option, I was like, okay, let’s try it out. And then people…
People didn’t hate it. Yeah, and then the rest is… But here we are.
How long have you been at it?
For VO, about 15 years.
And you start out full-time right away? Did you get a gig right away that was a full-time job or did you sort of ease into it?
It was pretty much full-time right away. Yeah, it was just like no voiceover and then I got the first gig, which led to the next, which led to the next, but it very quickly was just like, was what I was doing. And so I just went with it, not knowing where it would lead.
Excellent.
What in your life experience was most helpful to you to become a voice actor?
Well, I think it was my previous experience with the other forms of acting, film and stage work and training, because I had been training since I was a little kid in school and then doing classes outside of that. And I was in honors programs for it and it was my major. And so I think that above all is the most helpful.
I think a lot of people that want to get into voiceover sometimes maybe get into it for the wrong reasons. They want fame from it or they want to work with people that they admire. And that was never…
Fame is nice, absolutely. But it’s not what motivates and drives me and keeps me going for those days that are like 13 hour record days or crazy deadlines or impossible production problems that you have to figure out. It’s just, I just want to…
My goal is always to just make a good living doing what I love. And so if I keep that my theme, I feel like that’ll serve me best.
Excellent, now you mentioned 13 hour days and everything, so that’s gotta be pretty stressful on The Voice. So do you do any warmups or do you take any herbal sprays or herbal tea to kind of help your voice stay in a pristine condition?
I’ll do a lot of vocal rest and then I’ll drink… I mean, I drink beverages that are not in the extremes of temperatures. And so I’ll always kind of keep it, for me, maybe room temp a little bit above, a little bit below.
And so that, and then also in terms of warming up, just, for me, I don’t always warm up. I’ll wake up and get right in the booth and start recording. Because I have a studio, a residential studio, and so I’ll get up and immediately start doing my work.
And so, and some things fit that. Some of the auditions, I arrange them to where it’s gonna work out, to where I start with a certain type of audition and by the end of it, it gets to this type of audition. For me, some people audition at night, some people do it during the day.
It’s just, you know, how I do it.
Some people smoke in their cars before an audition. Did you ever hear that story about Kiefer Sutherland?
No.
There’s a story about him where, to get into a certain character voice, they can’t remember the exact character, he would close up all the windows in his car and smoke about two or three cigarettes before each session and then jump out and you have that natural raspiness. Well, not natural, like it’s chemically induced raspiness.
Wonder if that was for Solid Snake.
Yeah, I think it was. Yes, it was. Yeah, it was.
All right, so what beyond talent do you think one needs to have to book work and to keep working?
Well, I think one of the mystical things about it that people assign to VO is that it’s different from other jobs. When really, it’s very similar to every other career. You have deadlines, you have a hierarchy of people in the business, you have people you need to be nice to and people that are gonna be temperamental, and you have, it’s a people-oriented job, just like customer service work, just like cubicle work, just like anything else.
And I think that there’s something that happens when people mystify it and give it too much power. Because then what happens, I feel like, is when voice actors get involved with it, they become endangered servants to it. And so then they’ll do whatever any client says.
So if a client says, I know you’re about to go to a funeral, but I really need this copy for ABC, they’ll do it, as opposed to being like, no, I’m a human being going to a funeral right now. I’m not gonna do that. But you have that environment where actors will, if a VO job says, I need you to send me this MP3 and a finger of your choice.
They’ll do it. There are people out there that will do it. And that is the thing that I shy away from.
I will create boundaries and structures for my life that where I make my career a priority, but then at the same time, it’s like, it’s a priority. It’s not gonna be the end all be all. I think that’s something that a lot of, I see a lot of young voice actors doing is that they will do absolutely anything for it.
And that passion is admirable and you need that passion, but when it when it teeters over into obsession, when you make it all about the job, when you get that, then you have no more direction because you’ve hit your mark. So then you’re aimlessly searching, it never ends. Like I heard a story of a guy that he would, he would drive to a certain street, a quiet street because they didn’t have a studio.
And he would record audio books between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. And that sounds like a beautifully romantic story. That’s stupid. Go to a studio and rent the studio.
You have a paying gig, go to a studio, don’t do that to yourself. So when traffic would go by, you have to stop. Then you have to record somewhere.
This isn’t like the 1900s and the microphones first being invented and we’re figuring out how to… It’s like, don’t do that stuff, and then people hear that and they’re like, oh, that’s amazing, and no, it’s dangerous and it’s crazy. Don’t do that shit.
And so maybe that works for some people, done work for me. You gotta, I feel like you have to look at it like any other job, but one that you choose to do, one that you bring passion to, yeah.
It’s a trade-off though, right? We recently had on Christian Lanz, and he spoke about how the fact that he has this job but it is so flexible with home studio and travel rigs is what allows him to go on vacation to the beach with his family. So if he has a paying gig from ABC, for instance, like you mentioned, he can take an hour away from the pool while his kids are playing and knock that session out.
So it is a balancing act, wouldn’t you think?
Absolutely, yes. The world loves balance. We don’t wanna eat too much dinner, we wanna eat just enough.
We don’t wanna work out too hard, we wanna work out just enough. And so it’s absolutely balance. And I think what happens is when, kind of it seems like a little red herring, but I think how we approach social media and interaction like that informs our life choices of extremes.
So in social media, how do you get someone to click on an article? You don’t say, well, there was kind of a little bit of an argument here. Click to see what happens is like, there was an all out brawl, click to see what happened.
That’s how they sell people to get clicks. So then when you get in an extreme mentality of thinking and how we argue and debate online is in extremes, it’s not, it’s never like, that’s a valid point. Well, here’s my response.
It’s always like, you’re wrong, here’s why. I’m right, here’s why. And so that informs other aspects of our life, I feel.
And so that’s why we get into this. Also, you see, you see like The Rock, it has a big social media following. He talks about extremes.
And he talks about push yourself till you bleed, da-da-da, this and that, don’t rest, da-da-da. And that works when you’re an actor that makes $157 million a year. And you can forgo everything else because you have 10 people that do those things for you.
That sends an unhealthy, it’s as unhealthy, I feel, and I love The Rock. It’s as unhealthy as like when you look at the front of a fitness magazine, and you’re like, that’s what a normal man looks like. I need to be like that, that’s an extreme.
And so I feel like there’s cases of that when you see it in the VO. And so it’s careful to, you have to create that balance. Of course, I bring my work with me too.
And yes, you find that time, and you segment part of your day for that. But when it comes to like recording these things in cars at 2 a.m., that’s crazy, you know? That’s what I feel like.
So it’s, that’s, and I wasn’t always like that. I used to be, no matter what extremes, I’m gonna get it done, I’m the guy, because I grew up with Batman, and Batman is obsessed with right there, he’s obsessed with being a vigilante, and he does whatever it takes, and then what happens when he winds up alone, he doesn’t have what Damien he has, but not by choice. And so like, for me, it’s like, it affected my life because of that, you know?
It led to great things, and it led to not so great things, so trying to find that balance is just the sweet spot for me personally.
Well Todd, in addition to acting, you also direct and produce. Yeah. Do you feel the same way when you’re hiring an actor?
Do you look for that sort of person who respects the business, as well as their personal lives?
That’s a good way to look at it, actually. Respecting the business and respecting your personal life. Yes, actually.
I feel like I do, because I find that the people that come in, that are, have a tendency to lean towards the obsessive, that bleeds into other aspects of their life. Their performance is very, they lack technique behind the mic, because they’re just happy to get the thing out there, and they’re not being mindful of mic placement, and proximity, and things like that. So, yeah, I find that there’s an unspoken, ephemeral quality, I think, that comes across when you respect both, I feel like.
Maybe. That’s just me.
What do you do to kinda de-stress between work and everything? What do you kinda…
For me, I just set boundaries. I used to not. I said, like, okay, at this hour, I’m not doing any more work tonight.
On the weekends, I’m not gonna do, very rarely will I do, and you just, and it sounds like, oh, you’re missing out on this opportunity, but it’s like, no, you’re missing out on life. I can’t have to, like, make time for that. And I think we’re getting to a place where these, some of these auditions, VO auditions are like, they come out at 11.30, and then they’re like, need it ASAP.
Get it to me as fast as… Every audition says version.
It’s almost like they don’t even know it exists until they go, wait, what is that? Is that an ASAP audition?
Wait, did you get that out to the…
You know, it’s like, it’s, and I think it’s because people are like, drop the casket, I’ve gotta get this VO thing done. It’s because they do that, the agencies think, oh, well, we can just do this and get it even faster, when it’s like, well, no, guys, don’t let that happen. So I try to de-stress with doing things other than business things, like fitness is a big thing for me, or video games, or watching a movie, or spending time with friends and family.
So I try to do more of that.
That’s good. How much of your time do you find getting work is with agents and on your own time?
It’s busy on all sides. So that’s why boundaries are so important for me, you know? And so a lot of the people that work with me and for me are so crucial to finding that balance, but it’s always a goal to try to find the perfect balance.
So I haven’t found it yet. Working on it.
All right.
Well, Todd, I gotta say, I didn’t expect this to go in the direction of life balance, but I like it. I really appreciate you taking it, Todd.
Yeah, it’s really like, I’m actually pretty inspired hearing that and everything. You gotta find that balance in everything. That’s a lot of things people, a lot of voice actors don’t mention everything, but you mentioned it perfectly.
Or any walk of life. The whole society now is rush, rush, rush, and then wait, and it shouldn’t be like that. It’s like any other business.
It’s like when you look back and you’re like, wow, where did those 10 years of my life go? Yeah, you wanna be able to look back and have those like little light bulb moments.
So yeah. Well, Todd, thanks for being on the VO Meter and enjoy the rest of your time at Oticon.
Thanks for having me. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we’re back at the VO Meter with Johnny Yong Bosch and we’re talking about voice acting and the ways to get into it as a newbie for our guests who are just starting out in the business. So Johnny, how did you guys start in the business?
Well, they can’t do it the way I did it. Basically, I was on Power Rangers, after Power Rangers stunt team, they’re Japanese. They had a Japanese camera, wanted to shoot an action film.
They cast me as the lead. Their audio equipment wasn’t Japanese and so somehow it didn’t communicate, so the movie was all static. I had to go in and dub myself.
As I was dubbing myself, the producer walked in and thought I had a decent hero voice and asked me to come audition for Trigun. I auditioned for Trigun and I booked that role. So it’s kind of a fluke.
If that didn’t happen, then I wouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t be here. So complete fluke, but I guess in all of that, what you can take away from is just going to an audition.
Getting auditions, I think, is key. Having an agent is pretty important to get auditions. Yeah, there’s a lot, I guess.
There’s a lot.
I’m sure you’ve covered all sorts of stuff.
But for someone who has started maybe not in the last five years, it is entirely different. We’ve had that experience or that discussion with most of the people that are here, actually, that don’t do what I do, basically. So what would you suggest for someone who’s just starting out now to get an agent?
Because a lot of people, that’s their ultimate goal, which as we’ve talked about on our show, is not necessarily the right way to do it. But what would you suggest if you’re just starting out?
Not always. It depends on where you live, too. Some people will take advantage of you.
That’s a sad fact. Finding a legit agent is going to be important. But the problem is you do need to have something together to present to an agent, or you’re going to be auditioning in front of them right then and there, which is also fine.
But I guess I would… When I got into it, it was very different. The way I got into it was very different.
More of a fluke. But I would recommend definitely putting together a demo reel. And it depends on what you want to get into.
Commercials or voice over games or animation. And I’ll provide multiple characters and emotions. Nothing that’s already been done.
Don’t do Mickey Mouse. Just do some original stuff there that might be unique. Take definitely your own voice and showcase your acting.
Definitely need a clear speaking voice. So if you have a lisp or something like that, you need to work that out, unless that is part of a character. But definitely acting.
Take some kind of acting somehow. And yeah, put a demo together and try to… You just want to get auditions.
You don’t have to get an agent. You can take whatever demo and submit it to whatever dubbing houses are near you. You kind of need to live where there’s the work.
But that would be my advice. It might not be the best advice, but that’s what I would do if I wasn’t already in voice over.
So that brings up a good point. Do you find that it’s absolutely essential to live in LA or New York in order to do a looping? Or are there looping groups showing up in places like Texas or Atlanta and some of the other hotbeds that are growing?
Yeah, Texas definitely has a place. Even Canada. There are definitely places, but it depends on what you want to do.
Commercial, I think you could be pretty much anywhere. There are now also sites that are online where you can submit and make demos on there and you can get work from there. Having your own little home studio is also pretty nice because you can do the work there and you can submit it online.
I’ve done that plenty of times, a lot of work in commercials and stuff. I have my own studio, I dub my stuff and then I send it out there to them, wherever they are. I do think though, if you want to get into anime, Texas is a great place to be because they’ve got huge anime funimations there.
LA is just acting in general, in all sorts. I think New York as well. I definitely think you need to live where the work is.
If there’s no work, how are you going to get to work?
You think technology will ever change that?
Yeah. I think that it’s changing now. That like I said, there are sites now that you can join.
I don’t recall any of the names, but there are sites now where you can submit your own demos and try to get work that way. Now the pay won’t be as good as some union gigs or something like that, but it’s definitely work. And then it’s up to you to do the work.
There’s book readings and things like that, novels and stuff that you can voice over. That’s a whole different animal too.
Do you do any work in Japan, on the ground?
Yeah, motion capture.
How much of your work would you say is North American based as far as the production being done on site, North America versus Japan?
Oh, you mean anime versus…
Do you have to physically travel to Japan to do work, is what I’m asking?
No, I’ve traveled to Japan, yes, on multiple occasions to do motion capture.
Okay.
For which then I later do also the voice over. I mean, they capture my voice there and then we come back to the States and they’re working on the motion capture and all the animation or whatever. And then I voice the character again on the state side in LA.
But there’s also in LA, yeah, there’s a good number of original animation that I’ve been a part of. Most of my work though has been games and anime. The bulk of it has been.
But I need to live in LA or near Burbank and be able to do that work. A lot of shows that I work, I do dub now, a lot of foreign dubs for Netflix. And a lot of that’s being done in LA.
Okay, great. So you mentioned your home studio. Can you tell us a little bit about what sort of gear you use to record and what’s your recording rig?
I have a ton of gear. And some of that’s because of my band. So I have a lot of analog stuff for recording, but that’s when you want to get color.
So I’ve got Neve and API and Universal Audio.
Oh, you’re a geek.
I’ve got Neumanns, I’ve got Gafel microphones. So I’ve got very expensive microphones. I’ve got very cheap microphones.
I have everything from recording drums and guitars to voice. I have tubes, I have transistors. I have, you know, I’ve got it all, so.
You find that…
This has been years that I’ve put it together, you know.
Do you find it’s absolutely necessary to have top gear equipment in your home studio, at least for you?
For me, definitely. For me, where I’m at in my career, if I present them something, the quality’s not that good, then it’s just not gonna, it’s, you know, it’s who I am then, it’s part of me. Then it’s like, you kind of expect something good to come out of where I’m, my stuff, you know.
But, auditions, it doesn’t really always matter. Auditions, half time, like if I’m at a con, like I have auditions tonight, I’m gonna do them on my phone or my iPad and I edit them there. I do sometimes bring a rig with me, but I didn’t want to carry all that stuff.
I think it’s important to have something decent, you know, a decent condenser, you know, a nice interface.
You don’t want to… And a backup. I actually brought a blue microphone with me.
It crapped out this morning and that’s why I’m using the phone.
Is that right? Yeah, blue microphones are good, though.
Usually, yeah. I don’t want to trash them. They’ve been good to me so far.
Yeah, I think it’s a good idea to have a decent microphone, yeah.
Okay, so before we go, what are some things you’re working on that you’d like to promote?
The only thing I could really talk about is the stuff that they’re releasing, the boxes, and like the box set of Gundam. They’ve got the Digimon Tri stuff is out. Big Fish and Pagonia, Devil May Cry 5 will eventually be released.
I can only mention that it’s coming. The rest of it I’m not sure I can talk about, so I shouldn’t talk about them yet.
Fair enough, that’s a good place to be in. Well, Johnny, thanks so much for your time. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
So welcome back to The VO Meter at Otacon 2018. We are with Lucian Dodge. Lucian, how are you today?
I’m doing great, thank you. How are you doing?
Good, good.
Thanks for meeting with us today.
How are you enjoying the con so far?
It’s great, you know, as a homebody, it’s nice to get out of LA, get out of the apartment, and meet the fans of these projects that we work on. Kind of in isolation, I mean, obviously it’s with a director and engineer, but we don’t really know how this stuff is gonna land until we go out and meet these people and see how it’s affected them, so it’s really cool.
Sometimes you don’t even know what you’re recording for until it’s out. No, exactly.
Sometimes I find out, sometimes my girlfriend has to tell me, hey, you know you’re in this? I’m like, no? Yeah, here, check this out, here’s your voice.
Oh yeah, that is me. You’re right.
It’s better in the alternative. I get calls from friends that say, hey, I thought I heard you on a commercial in LA, and I’ll say, no, sadly not.
If it is, someone owes me a lot of money.
Exactly.
Someone owes me a check.
So can you tell us how you got started as a voice actor?
Sure, well, truth be told, it’s kind of a two-part road that kind of met up in the middle. I was involved in theater in middle school. I was a very shy, introverted child.
Wouldn’t talk much with anybody when I was young. One particular story, I think, I forget what year it is, but during a parent-teacher conference we were doing, I literally hid under the desk the whole time because I was just deathly shy. And so it was interesting.
The school I went to, it was a requirement at the end of each year that your class, and this was a combined class, so it was like first, second, grade, third, fourth, and so on, you put on a play at the end of each year. And I think in the beginning, I was playing small parts, but even then, I found that there was a certain freedom, a certain release in performing on stage. By adapting a character, I didn’t feel shy anymore, and it was really interesting.
And then the last year at this particular school, I actually ended up playing the lead in Moliere’s The Phony Physician, which was a very verbose role. And my mom saw the production, of course, and thought, wow, there’s something to hear. Shy little Lucian is playing this big, vibrant character and lots of lines.
I think there might be something here as far as helping to bring him out of his shell. So she signed me up for more acting courses, and I continued being involved in theater from that point on. Now, meanwhile, up to…
So at about age 13 or 14, I think, I discovered anime. And watching anime, I had the epiphany… I think it was watching Gunsmith Cats, I think it was.
And I recognized a voice from another anime that I was watching, and the light came on. I realized, oh, there are people who do… The voices of these characters had never occurred to me, never really thought about it.
So once the curtain had been parted, so to speak, I had to find out everything I could about this business, who are the people, how does this work, how do you do this. So I started doing a lot of research online. And the more I found out about this little niche of the acting business, the more I loved it.
And started practicing on my own, doing little skits, recording myself. And I thought, this is great. It’s everything that I love about acting, but in some ways it’s even better because you have so much more freedom in a lot of regards.
They don’t see you, so it’s really just about the illusion that you’re able to create with your voice alone that’s really gonna matter. So there’s so much variety and range you can really play with in that field. And from that point on, I said, well, this is what I gotta do as a job, as my life’s work.
And just put in everything I could to making that happen. And very fortunate, fast forward to now, I’ve been in LA about six years now, that it’s been going really well. So I feel very fortunate for that.
That’s great, that’s great. Now you do a wide range of characters. How do you develop each character’s voice?
Well, it starts typically with the picture. If there’s a picture, depending on what I’m working on, if it’s an anime, obviously, most of the work visually has been done already. So you can get an idea based on how they look, how they act in the scenes, their body language, things like that, about what kind of character they are.
And then also the script is very helpful. So based on those things, I kind of, in my head, try to envision, well, what voice do I imagine this character would have based on A, B, and C. If it’s a kind of older character or extremely old and kind of hunched over and very, very wiry and maybe based on the script, his brain is working and then a lot of different things at lunch and so he’s talking to this person, but wait, what was I talking about?
I’m sorry. And just sort of a voice emerges and all those things coming together. Just kind of, it’s like an alchemy, if you will.
Just kind of throwing these ideas into a pot and then I kind of feel out what do I think that would sound like. Not unlike if you’re reading a novel or something and based on the description of the character, you kind of think in your mind, so this is what I think they sound like. It’s pretty similar, I’d say.
Sometimes you have other elements to consider, as far as this is their physicality or this is how, cadence-wise, they’re written.
That was what I was watching you do to create that voice. I saw you hunching back and your arms moving a certain way.
Yeah, exactly.
And I guess what a lot of people would assume, because it’s voice acting, that that doesn’t really happen because it’s just the voice.
Right, there is this misconception that because it’s just the voice, in quotations, that we’re standing straight, rigid, in a isolated room in front of a microphone, just kind of saying the words into a microphone, just like that, but this is true for a lot of my peers, and certainly for me, if you ever see what it looks like when we’re performing in front of a microphone, by and large, we use a lot of physicality. I mean, like you mentioned, when I was kind of just creating that old character, just now, I adapted a certain physicality that I sort of visualized him having. And that just kind of helps to just get everything set so that it sounds like it would come out of that kind of body.
In the same way, if I was playing a beastly ogre or whatever and he’s got these large jowls or something and he has huge teeth, I just think it really helps if you just kind of adapt the physicality of that. And as far as what that voice would sound coming out of that figure.
Because it probably wouldn’t sound very clean and like this, necessarily, if you had all of that to work around. So yeah, definitely a lot of physicality. I mean, certainly if I’m doing a battle scene, within reason, there are technical parameters you have to keep in mind as far as addressing the mic and staying in proximity to the mic so that it’s going to give you a good recording.
But as far as, you know, I’ve got that pretty much locked into a general region. But then as far as what the rest of my body is doing, I’m sort of hurling myself around there from getting hit in the gut. I’m kind of doubling over.
Or if it’s a laid back character, I’ll kind of adapt, you know, hands in pocket, kind of, you know, like sort of David Spade, lackadaisical. Hey, man, what’s going on? I’ll kind of, you know, just sort of hold my body in a certain way that just kind of lends itself to that.
Yeah, little tricks like that, I think, just really help to put you in the moment and make a believable impression of what’s going on in the midst of that scene with that character.
Wow, this is like a master class in character development.
Yes, it is.
When you’re performing these days, is it mostly ensemble or do you record mostly alone?
It’s, you know, to my chagrin, it is mostly still just me in the booth, though my favorite way to record certainly is ensemble with having the whole group of kooky, my kooky peers, and kind of bouncing around ideas and getting our energy, you know, just in sync. Someone might throw out a funny improv or something, a little ad lib, someone else might pick up on that and do something based off of that. Just little things like that.
I just think it’s a lot of fun. But at the moment, it is mostly just one actor at a time kind of work, as tends to be the case with most anime dubbing. In fact, there may be an anime project I’m not aware of that has tried to do kind of a full ensemble impression.
That’s in the States. I understand now in Japan, when they record their actors, it is very much like a radio drama. But just for logistical reasons, because everything is really just kind of set into place, all the animation is done, and it’s got to be within, we’re talking like frames as far as timing goes.
So it’s just really hard to get all of that to work together and account for eight different people. So for that reason, it’s typically one person in at a time, which is an interesting challenge, because then you are, of course, with the help of the director, you’re finding the correct context for each individual moment, but it is kind of doing it piecemeal. You’re doing an individual moment, sometimes multiple times to get the timing right, and then you’re moving ahead.
Maybe you’re moving to a completely different scene, and you kind of have to… In your mind, I think it helps to have a memory of sort of what you did before, especially if you’re doing multiple cues, as it’s called, within, say, the same scene, to remember what you did before so that it kind of interlocks in a natural way, because the way it’s recorded is not the most organic way an actor can act for a scene, because you’re doing these little bits, and then hopefully when everything is connected together, it will sound like a cohesive scene, but it takes a lot of work and skill to give off that impression.
You’re from New York originally, right?
That’s correct. Upstate New York. Upstate New York?
Yeah.
It looks like James.
We have New York. New York, New Jersey and Philly here.
I live in New York City now, but I used to live in maybe an hour away from Syracuse.
Oh, great.
Fort Drum.
Fort Drum. It’s funny. You live in a place for so long, and yet there are so many little things like that.
You’re like, I don’t know that place. But in a way, it must have been not too far from my hometown, which is Ithaca, New York. Yeah, that’s really cool.
I did not know that.
Yeah, New York, New Jersey, Tri-State Area.
East Coast represents.
How did you end up making the transition to LA?
Well, honestly, it came out of a necessity to pursue the type of work that I wanted to involve myself in. I did live in New York City for about five years, where I predominantly did a lot of commercials. I’d say mostly.
A little bit of video game stuff and the Western animated projects as well. But mostly, it’s mostly commercials, as far as voice work is concerned. And it was always my dream to do more character work in animation and the big AAA video games.
And the truth of the matter is that most of that work is recorded in LA. So it was always my goal, eventually, to move there. It just was a matter of…
It was a question of when. When am I ready? And I struggled with that for quite a while.
I had a lot of, I don’t know, am I good enough to make that jump? What if it doesn’t work out? Lots of self-doubt.
And it was actually with the help of my agent in New York City, who kind of knew what my aspirations were. And she kind of just sat me down one day and said, hey, I really think you should be in LA. We just had that chat.
And I was like, oh, okay, wow, yeah, I mean, I’d like to, but you think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll help you out. I’ll get you some meetings or whatever.
So that was really nice of her. That was very altruistic. I mean, she didn’t necessarily have anything from a business standpoint to benefit by doing that.
It was just like, hey, I feel like I want to do this for you. Just a good person. So that was kind of the starting point where I really seriously considered it, as far as immediacy is concerned.
So I went out for about a week or two, I think, just to feel things out. And then I’m like, okay, I’ve got some ideas, some leads here. And then eventually I said, okay, let’s do this thing and made the jump.
And that’s also something maybe I could say is that it is important to make sure you’re prepared and to do your homework and to train, train, train, train, do your homework. But there probably will still be, there will always be that little doubt, as far as if you’re ready. And honestly, I don’t know if that ever goes away.
I still to this day, and look, I’ve had a decent career and I’m working, I pay the bills doing what I do, which is more than a lot of people can say. And I feel very grateful for that. But there’s still those times, there’s still that self-doubt and questions.
I don’t know if I’m talented enough, I don’t know. Is this going to continue to last? I’m not sure.
And I think at a certain point, if this is really what you want to do, I think, yes, take all the precautions you need. Save up a nice little nest egg to keep you afloat while you’re getting things figured out. But at a certain point, you’ve got to just try it.
Failure, whatever. That’s a scary term, and I think it keeps people from doing a lot of things that they would love to do, because they might fail. Well, then, fail.
That’s fine. That’s human. So, that’s what I’m saying.
Sadly, we’re out of time. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
Thank you very much.
We’re back again with The VO Meter. This is Chris, and I’m here with the very talented Ray Chase. Ray, how are you?
Hi, there. I’m doing great. Thank you for calling me very talented.
This is the best way to start a podcast.
Thank you. Thank you.
You’ve got to kiss the right butt.
Exactly.
So, how are you enjoying your con so far?
This is awesome. I’m here with my pals Max Middleman and Robbie Damon. We’ve been doing our shows.
The fans are really excited. It’s been fun. Lodocon was my first con two years ago, so it’s great to be back.
That’s good. We’re happy to have you back. I want to ask you, what in your life experience was most helpful to you to become a voice actor?
When I was a little kid, my dad would tell us stories to go to sleep that were really funny, and he would do tons of voices. He grew up watching lots of fun cartoons and always just playing around, and so I grew up mimicking his voices that he came up with. And then, yeah, later on I ended up taking a felon to acting, and then realized, oh yeah, I already knew how to change my voice.
This is great. So I think that’s… I attribute that to my dad, for sure.
Oh, great, great. Fathers really do have an impact. I do the same thing to my kids as well, every night.
You do? You tell them stories?
Yeah, I do. Sometimes I want to hear it, sometimes I don’t. So…
What beyond talent do you feel one needs to book work and to keep booking work?
In order to make a career as a voice actor, you have to have a lot of clients, because one job is not going to pay the bills. And because of that, it takes a long time for you to be able to quit your day job. You’ll have a lot of little jobs from voice acting that it takes years to actually achieve.
So that takes resolve, and I think that’s a really, really important thing. You can be really talented, but in order to actually see it through and put in the years that it takes, even once you’re booking work, like there’s still years before you book work, now you’re booking work, it still takes a few years for you to actually make a career out of it. So keep your resolve on.
Absolutely. Do you have any classes or books or programs you recommend?
Let’s see. There’s a book called Accents, a Manual for Actors by Robert Blumenfeld that I bought in high school, came with two CDs, and it just goes through all of the accents, even through time. And really, he doesn’t use IPA, he uses his own way of writing out accents, and it’s just a really helpful reference.
I spent one summer in high school and just learned 30 of them, just to be able to say, okay, at least I have a groundwork of accents to rely on. Hugely helpful book. I love that one.
Great, great. I hope to check that book out.
Yeah, for sure.
Do you have a home studio?
I do.
What do you have in it?
A microphone, I hope. It’s a Sennheiser 416 with a Scarlett preamp. And that one, I’ve had that set up basically for since forever.
That’s my… Since when I first started out, I had a little USB mic and then eventually when I started doing audio books, I put down the money to get a real good microphone.
That’s great. I have the Sennheiser as well, too. So it’s a great mic.
When you do a lot of your recordings, do you record with an ensemble cast or are you just by yourself?
My career has made me very lonely. I never record with anybody ever for anything. I know so few voice actors, which is a damn shame.
For video games, it’s all by ourselves. And for all my anime, it’s all by myself. I’m starting to do some animation work, but even that, it’s all by myself.
So no ensembles for me.
I was actually checking out your website and I noticed I had a very nostalgia 80s feel to it, and I personally loved it. So do you feel like having a little… I’m assuming you’re a big 80s fan, as well as all the nostalgia.
Do you feel that plays a very good impact on designing your website?
Well, that specifically is early 90s pixel art style, because that’s what I grew up on, on DOS computers. I had a Compaq 386 when I was a kid, and so I played all of those old Apogee software games and Epic Mega games. That was what I grew up on.
So that’s what I made my website on. I found a really cool pixel artist, Ainsley Askew, and she’s awesome.
That’s great. How much time do you find marketing yourself versus your agent getting you work? How much time do you get work?
How much is your time devoted to getting your own work? And how much time is devoted to your agent getting work? Is it a unique blend?
I would say that’s 50-50, and that’s the way it should be. You’re getting stuff that’s coming through the pipeline that your agent’s sending you, your agent’s pitching you on stuff, and that’s half of the work. But yeah, the other half is marketing yourself.
I don’t know if actual marketing works to get jobs in the social media sense, but what really helps is going out to industry mixers, meeting people, going to conventions. I’ve been going to GDC for the last five years. That’s the kind of stuff that really makes a difference, not making a Facebook post.
I don’t think that really makes much of a difference.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Now, you play a wide range of characters, probably most infamously, we, Noctis, from The Farmers Day 15. How do you develop each character’s voice?
It’s a collaboration with any director that you’re working with. For Noctis, the voice I use to audition is different than the voice that was in Episode Dust Guy, which is different than the actual voice that Noctis had. So it takes a long time.
It’s a process for a lot of these characters. But some of them, you audition, and it’s right out of the gate. You’re doing fine.
Like for Puri Puri Prisoner, it was immediately angel style, and you know it’s the real guy.
Absolutely. Now, as we talked a little bit about your career, can you tell us how you got started in the business?
I always did Voice 123, and that’s how I got started doing little low-paying jobs. Started building up a reel because of that over a couple years. And then in 2013, I started doing audio books, and I did about 200 in a three-year period, all by myself.
And that was a good way to get out of bartending, which was what I was doing, but it didn’t really help my voice acting career. It wasn’t until I met Max Middleman and we started taking classes together through Voice Actors Network and Voice Actors Network and Voices Voicecasting that I started to actually start booking some work through that. So I highly recommend those two.
Okay, do you have any current projects that you’re working on that you’d like to share?
Well, of course, we can’t talk about anything, but I can talk about some that are announced. We’ve got Fooly Cooly. Alternative is coming out in September, and at some point, Bloodstained is gonna come out.
I don’t know when the heck that game is gonna come out, but I can’t wait to play it.
All right, great. Well, we’re gonna run out of time right now, but right before we go, where can people find you online and everything?
Twitter, Ray Chase, or Instagram, RayChaseNation.
All right, excellent. Ray, thank you very much for your time. And hope you enjoy your con.
Take care.
Make sure you get that handshake in the podcast. You got it.
And we’re back. This is Chris with The VO Meter. I’m here with Bryce Papenbrook.
Bryce, thank you so much for meeting with me today. I can’t talk.
Happy to be here.
Yeah, all right. You’ve voiced a lot of my favorite roles, Kirito and Sora online, Erin Yeager, actually Kat Noir from the Adventures of Ladybug and Kat Noir. So there are a lot of emotionally draining and powerful roles.
So how do you develop each character’s voice?
Each one is kind of unique and different. It’s really a collaborative process. So first, when you’re cast in a role, you know there’s a whole auditioning process to even get in and to get cast as the role.
But once you’re cast, you work with the team. Sometimes it’s just you, an engineer and a director. Sometimes there’s also a producer there.
Sometimes there’s a team of producers. But what you do is you kind of look at the character and you come up with something, and then the director will adjust you a little bit, and then you adjust it a little bit. And then once you kind of find that role, they capture it.
They record it. And then every time you start a session, they use what’s called a vocal ref, which is just a playback of what you recorded that first session. And that kind of gets you back into the character.
You mentioned that you record with a cast. Do you usually record by yourself or part of an ensemble cast?
So it all depends on what kind of a show it is. If it’s an original animation where they’re animating based off of the audio, it records as an ensemble, almost like an old radio play. If it’s anime, so if we’re dubbing it from another language, which would include Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, and Miraculous Ladybug, those are all dubs, we record one at a time because we’re actually hitting sync.
So you’re looking at a screen, you see your character, the character’s talking and you’re talking at the same time, and the goal is to make it not look like Godzilla. Like you want it to fit the flaps. So it’d be almost impossible to do as a group.
It’s very difficult even to do by yourself.
Do you record a lot at your home? And if you do, what type of equipment do you use?
Sure, yeah, I do a lot of auditioning out of my house. I have like a semi-professional set up. I started with just a very basic mic that I bought at Guitar Center and it worked.
But I’ve reinvested a few times. So I have a Neumann TLM 103. It’s a great microphone.
I have a Universal Audio preamp and an M-Box. And then I use Pro Tools to record all my auditions.
What percentage of your work is North America versus Japan?
You know, it’s a blend of work that I do. Really, I kind of cast my net out as wide as possible. And I’ve done quite a bit of both.
Because on top of anime, I do a lot of video games. I also do radio and TV commercials. And I also do something called Walla, which is recreating the background noises in movies and TV shows.
You might notice my voice is a little beat up because I was working on a movie. When was that? Two days ago.
Screaming quite a bit. So it’s a blend of everything.
Well, so you mentioned now, familiar with that, it’s also called a loop group and everything, where movies and everything. What warmups do you do? Do you take any herbal tea or any kind of vocal sprays that kind of keep your voice in pristine condition?
I don’t. My warmup is yelling at other people in traffic. That’s really what I do.
But I wasn’t traditionally trained as a, or formally trained as a voice actor. I kind of learned on the job. And I looked back at a lot of the things that I did growing up, like I taught martial arts.
So I would just yell at kids and yell at kids and yell at kids, and then their parents would come and take class and I’d yell at their parents. So that kind of was my vocal training. So I have a different approach than a lot of other people.
Yeah, talking about your background a little bit, it’s amazing that for 16 years you’ve been practicing martial arts and you’re a third degree or sixth degree?
Fourth degree black belt. Tongue snow, yeah. I think it’s about time I test for my fifth, but I’ve been a little busy doing some other things.
So what was that crossover for doing martial arts into voiceover? How did you get your start into that?
Well, actually, my dad was a voice actor, so he was working on Power Rangers, and they needed a kid’s voice on Power Rangers, and my dad’s like, he’s a kid, throw him in the booth! And that’s how I got thrown into the booth for the first time. I never thought that I would really be a professional actor.
Actually, I thought I would be a professional fighter first. Then I went to UCLA and studied political science and philosophy, thought I would be an attorney. You know, it makes sense.
Fighter, attorney, voice actor, yeah! All leads. But I’ve always been around the industry, and when I graduated college, I booked something and then booked something else and booked something else and thought, I’m gonna give this a real shot.
And went for it and haven’t looked back.
Wow, that’s incredible. So it’s a really inspiring story. So how much of your time do you find yourself doing marketing for VO jobs?
How much of the percentage is by your agents and how much percent is on your own?
I mean, it’s a good blend. I’ve made a lot of contacts being in the industry for a long time, so people know the kind of roles that I play and they send me auditions for those. But the majority of my auditions come from my agent.
Yeah, I mean, there’s just a lot of competition out there. So auditioning is really the job. If you book one out of 100 auditions, you’re doing extremely well.
That is true. I’m very familiar with that. Actually, I heard one out of 200, so half that, so that’s good.
So, you know… All right, so now if you have someone young who says, Hey, Bryce, Michael E. Bryce, I want to be a voice actor.
How can I get my start? What advice do you have for me?
Yeah, I mean, it’s so tough because there’s not one way to become a voice actor. It’s not like if you go and study this, then you’re going to get cast as this role. It’s, you know, it’s totally random.
But I tell people, become an actor. Hone in on your craft. Record an amazing voice demo.
That’s almost like your business card. Get a great agent. Start auditioning.
Get as much experience as you can. And then hope that something hits. You know, there’s just no guarantees.
It’s like shooting darts at a darkboard blindfolded. But when you hit the bullseye, it’s an amazing experience.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Bryce, that kind of wraps up everything right now.
I want to take it easy. I know your voice is a little raspy. I don’t want you to talk and everything.
A little beat up.
So, Mr. Pappenbrook, thank you very much for meeting me today. And I hope you have yourself a great time and good luck on your journey.
Thank you. And I’d love to tell people where they can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Bryce Pappenbrook, on Facebook at actor Bryce Pappenbrook. And they should check me out on the Unlocked app, which is available for iOS, which is an app that I co-founded, and it connects actors and voice actors and creators to fans around the world.
So it’s amazing I can take people behind the scenes and show you what it’s like to record as a voice actor and what it’s like to go to these amazing conventions. So check out the Unlocked app.
Absolutely.
On iOS now and coming to Android very soon.
All right. Thank you very much. Hey, this is Chris.
We are back on the VO Meter. I’m here with Cherami Leigh. Thank you very much for spending time with me today.
So over 20 years of voice actor acting in general, that’s quite a resume. So I got to ask you, what in your life experience was most helpful to you in becoming a voice actor?
Man, I don’t know. I kind of just fell into voice acting. I started out just wanting to be an actor, and my ultimate goal when I started was to be on Barney.
And I was not on Barney, but I’ve gotten to do tons of other things. I have worked at Radio Disney. I’ve been an on-air DJ for them.
I’ve written scripts. I’ve been a copywriter. I’ve done promos for them.
I’ve been in an improv troupe. I’ve been interned at an agency. I’ve done adaptive script writing, directing, producing, and industrials, commercials, all of that.
And so just to say what I think is more impactful than the other, I think they’ve all helped in some way. Seeing the business from all these different sides, getting to experience a recording session from the side of a director or a casting director, that influences how I audition as an actor. Getting to see what it’s like working on the marketing side of things, working at Radio Disney helps me influence how I present myself when I’m helping market a show.
So all of these things have been instrumental to me and that’s one of the reasons why I love when people say, I just want to learn more about the industry. I’m like, yes, you have to learn as much as you can because it’s all interdependent and it’s constantly changing. The more knowledge you have, the more likely you’re going to be able to work because you’re constantly growing.
You’re more, I think, you’re more open to information and people can see that when they want to hire you or when they’re asking you to direct something. I think watching anime, watching movies, playing video games, being aware of what’s out there, all of that stuff is super important because if they’re trying to direct you in terms of a series that’s on Netflix, hey, can you think about this kind of character and you’re like, oh, I don’t actually watch that show or I have no idea what that is, it’s part of your job as an actor to be aware of what’s out there so that you’re involved in the business.
Absolutely, so much like any other career profession, you got to study and stay on top of it. What beyond talent do you feel one needs to book work and keep working? What do you need to kind of stay fresh and everything?
I think the biggest thing is a passion and love for what you do because if you don’t love it, the rejection is going to be so hard, it’s draining, it constantly brings you down. I love this industry so much. If I wasn’t an actor, I would still probably be in the industry in some shape, form, or fashion, but I found I would miss acting too much, that that’s just what I have to do.
But it sucks. I mean, sometimes I’ll not book something over and over again or I’ll be so close on something so many times and they’ll point out everything that’s wrong and I have to remind myself, well, but I got to play that character for five minutes. For those five minutes, I was the only fill in the blank of what I auditioned for.
And I can always savor those five minutes. And I’ve got to go in and have fun with my audition and not go in trying to make them like me. I mean, it’s sort of like when you go out on a date.
When you go on a date and you’re like, please like me, please like me, please like me, they’re going to feel this desperate energy from you and say like, I feel like they’re just not, they’re not present with me. I feel like they’re not showing me who they really are. Whereas if you go, you know what, I’m just going to have a fun time with this person, learn about them, have a conversation.
If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. But I’m me and we’re together for this moment. We get to go see this movie and have a great time.
And I think that’s what you’ve got to do as an actor, is keep it fresh, keep it fun, and remember why you started acting in the first place, because the business will try to tear you down.
Excellent advice, I got to say.
Thank you.
Any classes or books or programs you recommend?
Oh my gosh, so many great classes. I think it’s so imperative to take improv. I think it’s so, so imperative, especially for voice acting, to take cold reading classes, because I never get the script ahead of time.
I walk in, this is the first time I’m seeing the script, and I’m previewing the scene in Japanese while I’m seeing those words for the very first time, and then I’ve got to do the next take and try to get it as word perfect as I possibly can. So cold reading classes are really important. I actually think it’s important to work out and stay fit, because it keeps your lungs fresh and it gives you stamina in the booth and keeps you able to work longer and do longer screams and all of that stuff is very important.
Or if you want to do more motion capture, all of that physicalization is really important for you to be able to expand in that area of your career. I’ve read a lot of really great books. One of them that I just read, I think, is called The Dude and the Zen Master, and that was a really fun book with Jeff Bridges, and obviously a Zen Master.
I really loved that one. I love reading spiritual books. There’s a book that Dee Wallace wrote.
She was the mother of ET, and she’s looking at acting from a spiritual perspective, and I feel like it definitely is. I mean, the things that you’re working on as an actor and the things that are coming up for you in a scene and the roles that you’re booking, it’s amazing how much of a correlation it has to you in your life’s journey, and I think if you look at that as a way of kind of doing free therapy, it can only feed your experience as a human being and as an actor, so it challenges me. Some of the roles, I’m like, ah, I don’t think I relate to this character, and then when I read into it, I go, this is exactly what I needed to do.
This is what I was avoiding dealing with in my own life, and this role came to me as a challenge to get over myself and learn and grow, and I’m so grateful for it.
That’s great. That’s great. So now, after part day of voice acting, how do you find yourself distressed to unplug, unwind?
Yeah, I love to work out, just because I have a lot of… Usually I’m doing some sort of fighting game or some sort of fighting something. I’ve got to get all this physical energy out.
I usually like to actually watch documentaries on Netflix. I’m fascinated by human beings, so when I come home, I want to learn about somebody else or read a book. I like to hang out with my cats.
Shopping is fun. I usually like to write scripts. I’m writing a TV pilot and a movie right now, so jumping into another world is really fun.
But then there are some times I’m like, I just want to lay here and play this stupid app game on my phone about interior design. So sometimes it’s that. I’ve just been so emotionally tapped.
All I can do is pretend to rearrange a house.
That’s good. Any little bit helps.
Yeah, any little bit helps.
So you mentioned a little bit about writing scripts right now. Do you have any projects that you’re working on right now that you like to share?
A couple of years ago, my husband and I, he wrote and directed and I produced and gave him the idea for a series called Confessionals about… it’s an on-camera web series about voice actors at conventions and seeing the behind the scenes. So that is going to a web series festival in New Jersey next month.
So that will be really fun to see how people that are not in the voice over or anime community respond to that. And I’m working on Steins Gate Zero. I’m working on about ten video games that I’m not allowed to talk about right now.
I’m directing, co-directing an anime series. And I just finished doing Book Two, an audio book with Todd Haberkorn and Brittany Karbroski for… it’s called Tell-A-World.
It’s part of the Color World series by Rachel Kelly. So there’s a lot of stuff going on. Those are the few things I can talk about right now.
Hopefully we get more sword art. Hopefully we get more fairy tale. We’ll see.
Alright. So how do you find yourself calming down after a whole session of screaming and everything? What techniques do you do?
Do you have any sprays or any vocal tea that you use?
Yeah. I love Singer Saving Grace. That’s great.
I usually try to stay away from sugar. So they come in a yellow bag there. I can’t remember what they’re called, but it’s a yellow bag of cough drops that are sweet and mastivia.
I love them so much. And I drink a lot of throat coat tea. And there’s a Chinese cough syrup that I buy on Amazon, which is so delicious.
And it really can just coat your voice. But the most important thing that I have to do when it is shredded, and I mean like shredded beyond all belief, I have to be quiet. I can’t talk to anyone.
I can’t respond to anybody. I’ve got to write letters around and hope that people can read my lips. But that’s what I have to do when it’s just really, really tapped.
I just have to be quiet. But it doesn’t happen too often. The only time that I shredded my voice this year, I was dealing with really bad allergies.
And then went in to do a session where I had to die 400 ways. One of them, the last one, was we’re going to stab you in the throat, rip your throat up and set you on fire. And I was like, awesome, I think that’s going to be the last one of the day.
And it was, but it sounded real cool. So I guess there’s that.
That’s great. Now you mentioned that Chinese tea, I actually use it as well. I heard it’s been called the Hulk Juice.
It has been called the Hulk Juice.
Yeah, because right after Camp Francis’ last name, Ted Escora, he uses it, and he says it works wonders.
My trainer, and he’s an incredible actor as well, Lou Freignot Jr., obviously his dad is the Hulk Hulk, I should see if I can just drop some off at his house, because when I train in their gym behind their home, I should just be like, this is Hulk Juice. It’s an offering. You should have this.
And see how he responds. See what he thinks. Because we’ve got to get all the Hulk stamp of approval on it.
Mark Ruffalo will be next.
Well, Cherami, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. So thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it. You gave such amazing advice. Thank you.
It’s a pleasure to talk to you.
You too. You have yourself a good one. We’re back on the VO Meter with Josh Greeley.
I’m here with James. James, how are you doing? I’m doing great.
So, Josh, thank you very much for meeting with us today.
Absolutely.
How are you enjoying the con?
Fantastic, man. I was telling someone earlier, you know, like 14 years ago when I was still starting out, I hadn’t really done anything yet in the industry. This was the first con that I ever came to as an attendee from Texas.
It was the first time I’d ever really flown out of state by myself to go to anything like this. And it changed my life, changed my world. And I decided from that point on that, you know, one of the milestones, one of the goals I wanted for my career was to be a guest at this con and took me 14 years, but I did it.
So yeah, it’s been, it’s literally been a dream come true all weekend.
That’s amazing goal. And I actually have like a similar goal to that, I can’t talk either.
We talk for a living. That’s the thing.
That’s always the curse.
We talk for a living, we can’t freaking do it at the time.
Yeah, so we’re 14 years in voice over. So mind sharing, how’d you get started?
I, well, in voice over, I started just because I got the phone number for ADV Films and said, I want to be a voice actor. And so, but I started in theater. I started as an actor when I was five years old.
And I did nothing but community theater from, you know, that point, you know, upwards. My little podunk town in Texas didn’t offer theater in school at all. So it was, community theater was really the only game in town for me.
And that’s where I started and where I really kind of found my life love as early as five years old. And then, you know, I’d loved cartoons growing up, fell in love with anime, you know, from a very early age, you know, Pokemon, you know, when it hit was definitely huge. But then discovering less mainstream stuff on my own and then, you know, like Slayers and Ranma One-Half and stuff.
And then eventually to and Dirty Pair and Dirty Pair Flash and all those good like in old school ADV stuff like Evangelion and then Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and all those, you know, the Toonami stuff from my childhood. Everything was just it all kind of culminated individually was just like, well, I love cartoons and I love acting. Maybe I should marry these two loves.
And so I decided to pursue it. And a buddy of mine through an online forum that went to school with a girl that had done some voice work. She was the voice of Nadia and the 90 dub, the 90s Nadia Secret of Blue Water.
And she gave me the she gave me the phone number for ADV. And I just called them up. It was like I’d like to do this.
And they put me on a waiting list for auditions and stuff. And January of 04, three months before I graduated high school, I started I did my first professional gig. And it’s they liked me enough that they kept using me.
And, you know, sometimes, you know, that particular branch of ADV shut down. And so I had to, you know, you know, I thought everything was over, you know, before it even started. But then a director I’d worked with there was moved down to the main branch in Houston.
And he brought me in on a year and a half long project. And other directors found me as a result of that. And then Funimation people discovered me through Monica Rial.
And then it is just one thing led to another. And, you know, here I am 14 years later, still riding the train, man.
That’s a great journey.
Yeah.
So you talked about, you know, you said it’s a life experience. What in your life experience was most helpful to you in becoming a voice actor or an actor in general?
What life experience was most valuable? Becoming an actor first. Because acting not only, you know, gave me the tools that I needed to, you know, actually, you know, go in with, you know, my guns blazing for my first audition, my first official professional audition, you know, I was already comfortable with myself as a performer.
But becoming an actor also taught me how to put on a confident face, even in my most frightful moments. And so, like, every time that I had a crippling self-doubt or something going into the booth or to an audition or anything like that, I would just start acting like a confident person. And that got me through it.
And so, yeah, acting literally is the thing that made me become a professional actor and not just because of the craft itself.
Absolutely. That’s great for job interviews, right?
Right, yeah.
Yeah, exactly. You go in and you’re just like, I can own this. Like, I’ve got the script, you’ve got the script in your head.
And you’ve been trained in improv and stuff, so you can roll with the punches for whoever’s interviewing you and everything. So yeah, it’s a great set of tools to have in your kit.
Awesome. You mentioned Monica Rial earlier. So she moved to Funimation long before you did.
What was the first project she brought you in for?
Kenichi.
Kenichi.
Yeah.
We had ADV films. I had had my first lead role in a show called The Wallflower. Had a couple of parts after that, and then Matt Greenfield cast me as the lead in Gurrenlagen when we first brought it to the States.
And we did the first five episodes of it, and this was going to be my first breakout role. This would have made my career back in 2006, 2007. But I lost it within a month of having it, and it was heartbreaking, and I thought I almost gave up on all of it after that.
And then Monica had, because ADV was about to fold as a result of losing the title, she moved up to Dallas. She’d been working for Dallas for a long time, but she officially moved up there. They made her a director, and the first show they gave her was Kenichi, and I auditioned for it out of a closet in Houston.
And she, I guess, you know, after just from some of the times that we’d worked together at ADV, and from my audition, she thought that I had what it took to give Kenichi what she was looking for, and she literally changed my life. Brought me up there, and with all the funny people discovered me because of it, and because of Kenichi, and most of my work at ADV had been villains, because that’s how they knew me for, for the most part, and it was fun, but I didn’t get to, you know, I started getting stuck in just doing nothing but that, and then Funimation saw me, the first thing they saw me on was the young hero, and so I played young heroes ever since, and without that, I probably would never have been Armin. I probably would have never been the Grand Minister, you know, in Dragon Ball, the show that solidified my love of anime, and like, it’s, it really, like losing that role was the biggest blessing in disguise that I ever could have hoped for on my journey, and you know, it took me four or five years to actually realize it, and so like, it’s, sorry, I’m not even sure if I’m answering your question.
No, you are, you are.
Yeah, it’s so weird how these little things that you think, these things that come along and punch you in the face and make you want to give up, and just the fact that you stick with it, and it finds out that that wallop to the face was actually the wake-up, exactly what you needed to happen. Yeah, it’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s so worth it if you stick with it and you learn it.
Yeah, so how did you manage to stay positive and unbeaten and not give up and say, oh, this is… You have a huge role like that being taken away. How did you manage to work through that?
Really, it was just the fact that I just wanted to keep pursuing the dream. I wasn’t ready to give up. I had so many goals set for me that I had set for myself beforehand, and the thought of not finishing those, even if it was through no fault of my own, still felt like if I didn’t finish them, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
It would feel like a failure. And while I don’t want to be afraid of failure, I would rather think of failure as the great teacher, as the thing that you need to go through in order to learn. That was one thing of like if I lost and was not able to at least do the things that I had set out to do initially with this, I had set so much of my own self-worth in that goal that I wasn’t willing to give it up yet.
And thank God I held on even for just those few months because then, you know, Kenichi came along and that was a two-year-long process after doing that whole show. It helped me pay the rent. I moved up to Dallas as a result of it and more and more people started using me.
It was just like, all right, well, I guess life’s moving on. I’m moving out of another place. I moved up even closer to home than I was before.
So yeah, it all worked out in the end.
That’s great. You have any classes or programs you recommend to anyone who wishes to pursue in the field?
I highly recommend looking up any sort of classes first that are actually done at colleges or any sort of theater courses or if someone’s still in high school or something, if their high school offers that, do that. It’s really, it’s kind of a, it’s a hard process now, these days, to find teachers that are actually worth their salt. I think there’s a lot of people that are starting to see classes as just money farms and people that aren’t actually qualified to teach aren’t actually, aren’t the ones that are, you know, and then the market’s being saturated with these people.
So I would just say for anybody that was gonna do that, if you’re gonna pay something along the lines of $600 for a course, which I have, I paid $600 for a full weekend workshop where I worked 12 hours a day with one of the industry’s most well-informed and most experienced voice directors and voice casters in the history of voiceover. That’s worth it. If I then paid that same $600 to be in a class with, to be in a one-day class for one hour with only, with like eight to ten people, and I’m only getting like five, maybe five minutes in the booth, and we do that for like maybe just a couple of weeks or whatever, it’s like, you’re not learning anything.
You’re not getting any experience or any exposure. You are literally, it’s just a money farm. It is a ripoff.
And I, so like just be wary of exactly what it is people are offering, because it’s getting dangerously close to pay to play. And that’s, if that starts, it’s gonna hurt everyone.
Absolutely.
So yeah, just find teachers. Find teachers. That’s the best thing that I can tell someone.
Now, like I mentioned in regards to rates and everything, as you mentioned, pay to play sites, there are a lot of, one that won’t be mentioned, you know, will charge a large fee and then pay the actor very minimal.
Yes.
So, how would you feel to kind of like, actors who really want to get this gig, they feel it’s a big opportunity, but the price isn’t what they want, and what do you have to, what advice can you give them for that?
Are you talking about Voices 123? Because I will say that name out loud. Yeah.
voices.com and Voices 123, this was strictly something to bring in amateurs with a dream that did not know, that do not know the industry, do not know what their time is worth or what a commercial booking is worth. And these websites rip them off. And they make them think that, oh no, you’re living the dream, you’re getting paid exactly, you’re getting paid the big bucks, like the big professional things.
No, they are being ripped off in order for this website to make the majority of that money that I would make if my agent had booked it for me instead. And using that to build their website so that they can rip more people off. So like, yeah, I have no problem saying those names out loud and accusing them and calling them out on their BS because they are also part of the problem.
Absolutely, yeah, it’s very hard.
So yeah, that’s another thing I would say to look out for. Because they’ve already oversaturated the market with so many people that just, you know, sit around at home after their job and from their couch just think, you know, I think I’d like to try to do voices. And they actually, and they give them that opportunity to come in and, you know, think that they’re going to get an extra form of income or something.
And it literally is just a way to give other, you know, commercial companies a way to pay less. And again, that’s another thing that will damage everyone. It will damage the entirety of the industry at every level, and this will not be a job that anybody can do to actually make a living at anymore.
And the profession will die. The profession will die. So…
It’s a small, small ripple that will affect everyone.
Quick question. I would like to hear your opinion on, based on what you’ve heard from young amateur voice actors, what’s the number one error you see them make as they’re going about their career?
This idea that they need to seek out the advice of people like me in order to take that first step. I had no idea when I was doing, when I started this. Absolutely none.
I had nobody that I could turn to. The internet was still a fairly new thing. Facebook wasn’t even around yet, or Twitter.
There was no big social media way for anybody. Like, everybody just had their own private email. If you didn’t know somebody’s email, you didn’t know how to get in touch with them.
So, like, it really was just like, I just had to figure it out for myself, and I carved my own path. And the great thing and the hard thing at the same time about this industry is that you don’t have to. There is no one way.
It is literally a… This is the type of business that is kind of a frontier, like a wild frontier type thing. If you can figure out a way to get in and how you…
What you have to offer and how you can use what you have to offer to get yourself into the industry your own way, that is the best way. Yes, is it smart to ask for advice? Absolutely, and I’m willing to give it.
But the biggest mistake that I see people make is this idea that, no, I’m not ready yet. I can’t be ready until I’ve gotten all the information, until I’ve asked every single actor or anything like that, and then they never move on it. They never actually do it.
Just do it. Just go. And the other thing that I think is a big mistake is this idea of only becoming an anime voice actor.
Yeah. Pigeonholing yourself. Or only doing voices on YouTube.
And they want to make a living doing this. They want to make a career out of it. These are not sustainable.
There is no possible way I could stay just an anime voice actor and pay my bills. And only do that. And keep my schedule open for whenever I would have the next anime gig.
I assume that means a lot of commercial voiceovers.
Lots. You take everything. Take everything.
You audition for original animation, industrials, commercials, narration, audiobook narration, industrial narration, video games, political.
Anything that you can do.
This idea of… Greg Ayers, a very popular voice actor, has one of the best ways of explaining this that I’ve heard. Saying that you want to become a voice actor and only work in anime is the same idea as saying, I want to run a car dealership, but only sell 1967 Camaros.
Yep.
You’re not going to make a living off that. It’s unrealistic. People, I think, need to realize that this is not a job…
The reason, the stereotype of the young working actor that also works as a barista or a waiter or a waitress or something is so prominent to the point of being a stereotype. It’s a stereotype for a reason. It’s because we all do it.
We all have something. Most people that I know that started in theater and that are chasing after some sort of career in this field have a second job. For a very long time, the only reason I couldn’t, I didn’t have a second job, was because I shared a one-bedroom apartment with four people.
And so our rent was extremely cheap. And we lived like animals, basically, but we paid the rent. We had all of the free time and stuff that we could want, and that allowed me to be only open to acting.
But eventually, at one point, when I was working for Funimation, and only funny for a while, before I became a writer, I delivered cookies. I worked for two years, almost two and a half, three years for a company. And I did it full-time hours, but in order to make full-time hours but still keep myself open during the week, I only worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
So I would work three 12-hour shifts back to back, and then I’d have the rest of my Monday through Friday open for any sort of voice work that I might potentially get. And thankfully, they were all so willing to let me go take time off on those weekends to go do conventions whenever I had conventions as well. So I was insanely lucky and fortunate to find a job that was even willing to have on a part-time or semi-full-time employee that they would also let go every other week end or something.
I mean, insanely fortunate, and I did not appreciate them as much as I should have when I had them. But people need to realize that they need to have some sort of backup or some sort of other form of income in order to make this work in the initial stages. It is very rare that someone comes in and blows people out of the water and immediately gets the first lead role that then becomes like the next big thing and it makes their career overnight.
Most… No, it is so incredibly rare that it’s… that I would almost say that it never happens.
So, yeah, that’s the other. That’s the other. Those are really the two biggest mistakes I hear.
Other than that, people looking for a backdoor. The people that consistently ask the question, how do I become a voice actor? How do I get in the industry?
And then you give them the answer and there’s so much work involved with that answer that they are not willing to listen to it. They want the instant gratification. They want the, oh no, how do I come into this right now?
What’s the backdoor? There is none. I had to make my own and I kicked it down until they let me freaking do what I wanted to do.
Obviously, I was professional about it. I was never a jerk or anything and I never tried to force myself on anybody. You know, I let my work ethic and my ability speak for themselves.
And really, I think that’s the best approach is you go in, you kick ass at your job, and when you’re done, you shut up and leave. Absolutely. They remember you because you’re good and you’re fast and you’re professional and then you get out of their hair and you let them continue working.
So yeah, those are the three biggest issues that I think I hear all the time consistently at almost every convention. And from people online and emails that I get and letters that I get and stuff like that, it’s… I wish and I hope that every single one of those people, if this is something that they absolutely cannot see themselves being happy unless they are doing this, I hope that they find their way in and I hope that they find the courage to actually just say, you know what, maybe I should just try this.
Maybe I should just go ahead and do it and see where it goes. And I hope that, you know, I would hope that they all, you know, find their dreams and live it, but as long as they keep this mindset of, no, I need the back door or I just want the instant gratification or anything like that, and yeah, sure, you might succeed. You might get it, but it’s going to be hollow and it’s not going to be fulfilling because then you’ll always just be expecting the rest of your career to be just as instantly gratifying as that, and that is not the nature of this business.
Absolutely.
You’ll be told no a hundred times before you’re told yes. And if someone can’t handle that, they should not be doing this.
That’s right. Overnight success takes 20 years. Hey, this is Chris for The VO Meter.
I’m here with Mr. Matsukaze. Thank you very much for meeting with us today.
Nice to meet you. Thank you, thank you.
So, can you tell us a little bit how you got started in the voiceover business?
So, I started out in a hero, like a hero, like Power Rangers style show called Denshi Sentai.
In the movie, the sound and the video were filmed separately.
So, that was filmed using film. So, the visuals and the audio tracks were recorded separately.
After that, I shot a game.
At that time, I shot motion capture and CG.
So, after that, I was actually headhunted to be in a game called Shenmue, where I did the motion capture and the voice over work. So, it was another one of those jobs where I was doing the visual, physical side of it, and then doing voice over work as well.
So, I was introduced to the Shenmue sound director for an audition for an animation.
So, I started out as just a straight, plain actor, but because my debut was the type where I was required to do the overdubbing, and then I moved into another job where I was doing overdubbing with Shenmue, the voice director for Shenmue actually introduced me to some auditions for anime work after that.
Wow, it’s amazing.
It’s amazing.
Do you think this career path is only for you in Japan?
This kind of career path that other people in Japan, aside from me, don’t necessarily have.
People tell me it’s a very rare type.
It is, it is. You’re very skilled, very talented.
Lucky, lucky man.
So, how do you develop each character’s voice?
What is it like to develop each character’s voice?
There are those who speak normally and are interesting, and those who aren’t.
I’m not that type of person.
So, you could probably divide the types of voice actors in Japan into two categories. The type of person who their normal speaking voice is very interesting and original, and then there’s the type of actor who has to create a voice, and I’m the type that is voice creation type.
So, I try and do is strengthen the traits of the character that I associate with, and try and really bring that closer to who I am and my empathy with that character. And then on the other end of it, I try to take the parts that I don’t necessarily associate with and bring those closer to what I can do with the character. So, I try to create a voice that is as much of me as I can, and bring the character closer to what I empathize with that character.
Great talent. Very good. Do you record mostly by yourself or as part of an ensemble cast?
How much work do you find doing by yourself and how much work do you find doing with the cast?
I hear that it’s kind of a Japan-only type of approach, but we try as much as possible to gather everybody and do all of the voice work at the same time.
So, there’s usually about four mics, and then everybody stands around the mics, and when it’s your turn to talk, you step up and do your lines, and then you try and make as little sound as possible as you move away and kind of step out of the range, and then come back around and wait.
In line for your next turn and do the next line.
So before they have to do some really energetic like screaming style acting or something, you have to stand up extremely quietly and approach with making no sound, and then you do your yelling, and then you have to also leave without making any sound, so I hear that it’s a very Japanese talent that people outside of Japan don’t necessarily work in those kind of conditions.
Absolutely. From what we do here, we usually record separately. Very artists, because their schedule and conflicts are doing many different projects, they’ll record separately and then paste it all together.
Very few projects.
It’s hard to do it alone in the US.
Do they record at home sometimes too, right?
Yes, we do. We have our own home studios at home. That was like the last question.
Do you primarily go to your own studio, or do you go to a studio from whatever production company you’re working for?
That leads to the next question. Do you have your own studio at home, or do you work there?
We have a sound recording studio in Tokyo.
So there’s a multitude, like many tens of studios around Tokyo. So we have to go around to the different studios.
So all of the voice actors have to meet at a specific sound studio at a specific time. So everybody meets at the studio, and then meets at a different studio for the next… There’s probably not even a single voice actor in Japan that has their own home studio.
Really?
The reason for that being that there’s no director at your house, so you have to go to where the director is.
There are musicians, but there are no musicians who go to their homes to record.
So of course there’s musicians who do that sort of thing, but no matter how famous the person is, there’s probably nobody who does their recording at home and sends it in in Japan. That kind of doesn’t exist.
Wow, that’s a lot of different. There are some production companies that we will have to go to the studio, but a lot of times if we’re doing a quick commercial or what have you, we’ll usually do it through Skype or through a phone patch and record the lines that way.
We’ve heard a lot about this, and we’ve heard that when a Chinese client is doing a script, the director can’t come.
So we’ve heard rumors that the director is doing a script on Skype.
I’ve heard rumors of productions that are based in China, where you talk via the director in China via Skype. I’ve never experienced it, but I’ve heard rumors.
Yeah, I’ve actually done that.
In Japan, there are actors, directors, Japanese directors, and Chinese directors on Skype.
In that case, usually, there’s the Japanese voice actor, and then the Japanese director, or the production director, and then the Chinese director. So they are the ones who are doing Skype, and then the production manager is the one who’s giving the directions from China to the voice actor.
Wow, a lot of work for the director.
The director must be very busy.
Do you, in the ensemble cast, rehearse beforehand, or do you get the script usually as soon as day of, and then you just kind of improv beforehand? Do you just kind of, everyone meet at an agreed time, rehearse, and then perform, or is it all just sort of improv and acting in the moment?
Do you rehearse in advance, and then everyone rehearse, and then you gather at the scene, and then you record the script, or do you go a little earlier, rehearse, and then record the show?
This is also one of the reasons why other actors are said to be quite special in voice acting.
In the old days, we would gather together and watch the script and watch the video together. Then we would say, I’m going to do the test, and then we would go into the microphone. Then we would do the show.
We would do it in real time, and then we would do it as we saw it that day.
So the traditional flow of things used to be that you would show up as a team, and there would be the rough of what’s finished, and so you watch where all of the mouth movement goes, and kind of everybody just mutters their lines, and then they say, okay, test, and everybody runs through the test rehearsal of it, and then they would take the final take, and that’s like everybody in the room for the full process, and now what’s kind of becoming more of the industry standard is that the company will send you a DVD of that footage, and so you can kind of do your practice at home and get what you’re going to do ready, and then you meet at the studio and do the test, and then do the final record.
So it’s a little similar how a lot of dubbing is done in studios such as Funimation and what have you. We won’t get a DVD sent home. Well, sometimes go to the studio, then they’ll do the test run, then we’ll kind of voice, you know, mutter our lines, then we’ll do action and record a take.
To get it delivered first.
He’s a great guy from the past.
So that’s similar to the Japanese classical style, where people who have tremendous talent would be able to show up and look at a character, for example, Nozawa Masako, who does Dragon Ball Z, is famous for being able to have no prior knowledge of a character and just see what they look like and look at them moving on the screen and come up with a funny voice that works for the character. But in modern times, it’s really difficult for somebody who’s slow in creating their character to keep up with that fever pitch at the recording studio and be expected to ad-lib that heavily. So it’s kind of shifting towards get the DVD at home and do a little bit of pre-recording.
When you’re developing a character that is getting really emotional in the moment where they have to cry and scream, how do you brace yourself for that? Do you kind of think of any emotional thoughts or do you just kind of get lost in the moment of performing the character that you just go with it and get lost in the moment?
When you’re developing a character that is getting really emotional in the moment where they have to cry and.
Moment is the moment.
It’s like the moment you create.
I really feel like explosiveness, what comes out is the most important thing.
So, like, in a play, you have the time to be, like, in your outfit, and you can remain in character, and then there’s the buildup. But when it comes to anime, everything is what’s done and what’s ready, so it has to be very in the moment.
So, I do end up kind of feeling ill, like sometimes I end up even feeling like I’m going to throw up, but I feel like when that happens, it means I’m getting closer to where I need to be, the things that I’ve got to answer.
A good voice over, just doing a very normal character, and you have to remain within the frequency of normality, then there’s no risk being… But when it comes to the protagonists, you have to be able to hit those highs and then hit those lows like super elated, like super heartbroken, very angry. All of those things, you have to be able to hit the apex and the zenith pretty repeatedly, and also in real time.
And so that’s very emotionally trying. It can be exhausting.
Yeah, you feel completely drained afterwards, almost.
So that’s what I mean when I’m saying that if I feel sick, I feel like that I’ve hit all of the points to make that protagonist interesting.
Wow, good, good. Do you do any warm-ups before going into the studio? And if so, what are a few, be able to share a few examples?
Ah, ah. Pretty much, it’s been a long tradition of, since for about three hours before you go into the studio, wake up and you do voice inflection training, ah, ah, ah, things like that.
So, like…
So, in my case, I like sometimes, I’m required to do a very husky type of, gravelly type of voice. So, if I’m doing that sort of thing, if I warm up, then I can’t get the voice that I need. So, I won’t say a single word until I get to the studio, and then I’ll get ready to have that very…
So, I just woke up, very gravelly type of voice. But in the case where they need a high-pitched tone, and if I’ve used a high-pitched tone, then I can’t get back to the low pitch, so I’ll have to stay in that tone. And same thing for a low tone.
So if they need a low tone, then I’ll spend the whole morning talking in very low tone so that I don’t betray that idea, so that when I’ve been doing the voice, it doesn’t…
Okay, so you sort of spend, for every character, if it’s a higher tone or lower tone, you just spend the entire session in that high tone or in that low tone.
And if it’s a low voice, then you’ll be using that low voice all the time?
Basically, it’s usually middle, high, low.
It’s pretty much only three. There’s middle, high, and low. So a little bit of in-between, so…
All right. Well, we’re getting close to the end right now. So do you have any advice for anyone there who wished to get into voice acting or anyone who wants to pursue anything in the creative field?
So, if you have anything to say to someone who wishes to pursue voice acting or wants to become an actor, please do so.
I was able to talk to Chris today and Andrew.
So, the world is expanding, and good works are expanding from our own world. I hope we can create great works together and enjoy them together.
So, it’s all thanks to being involved in anime that I’ve been able to come here and meet people like you, Chris, and me, and been able to meet all kinds of people that I never thought I was able to meet. And that’s all the power of anime and working hard in the industry to realize your dreams. So, I really hope to continue to do works that will help connect people and inspire.
And I hope to meet everybody else on the world scene from here on out.
I hope the same. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
And thank you for meeting with me. And I hope best of luck on your journey and everything. And hopefully get to see each other soon.
Thank you for taking the time to come.
It’s nothing.
It’s an honor to meet you.
See you again. I’ll do my best to keep my name on the Teropi of the one I thought was a masterpiece.
I’m gonna keep working hard so that whenever you’re watching something that you think, oh man, this is a really good piece of work that my name is in the credits somewhere.
Oh, I know. I know.
Well, thank you again for your time.
Thank you very much.
Hey, this is Chris and James. We’re here with Erika Mendez. How are you, Erika?
I’m doing really good.
It’s been a great weekend. Good, good.
Thanks for meeting with us. So I just want to jump right in. Excuse me, jump right in.
I can’t talk. It’s Sunday. Tongue-tied and everything.
So how did you become a voice actor?
I have always been interested in cartoons and video games, and I’ve also always wanted to do some creative expression. I did drawing and stuff like that. That was my creative outlet for a while.
But I’d always had an interest in acting, but I was a very shy kid growing up, so it wasn’t the easiest thing for me to get into until I finally pushed myself to start doing acting in high school. When I found out about voice over, it felt like the natural progression I could do, like acting and not have to be on stage. But I knew I still had to get that acting skills within me, so I took some classes and stuff like that.
But it wasn’t until I moved to California from Chicago that I had done audio dramas and stuff like that online beforehand and met a lot of people. And I knew people that were already working in the industry and people who knew what I could do. So when I moved to California, people would every once in a while throw me some opportunities.
And for about the first year, nothing super landed. But I started taking classes with Tony Oliver at Bang Zoom. And after taking two of those, he apparently really took a shine to me and was like, I’m going to recommend you.
So they started sending me auditions and it took a little bit before I finally booked my first role with them. But that was Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. I did a voice match for that video game.
And then they’re like, you do little boy voices. All right, this is what you’re going to do for us for the next year. I’m like, cool.
So that was my way of jumping into Bang Zoom and eventually doing as much stuff as I’ve done with them and a lot of other studios.
Okay, excellent. Now you mentioned that you were in Chicago. Now Chicago is actually a very big voiceover market.
Yes.
For commercials and other things. So what was it that brought you to move from Chicago out to California? Was it a wish, desire to pursue more animation?
Actually, I have a degree in animation. I have a BA in animation specifically. I went to school for that.
Which one?
DePaul, DePaul University, yeah. So I’ve got a degree in everything, paid $20,000 for that schooling and have done nothing with that. But that was the plan, though.
I actually am dating Lucian Dodge, which I believe you spoke with him. I don’t know when our interviews are going up, before or after each other. Yeah, so he was from New York, and I was from Chicago.
We did long distance for about two years, and eventually he’s like, I want to go to California. And I’m like, all right, well, I have a degree in animation. That’s the best place, I think, to go for animation.
And I’m going to follow you, follow your dream. We’re going to do this. We’re going to go to California.
And it just kind of so happens that, you know, the voiceover stuff came up. I’d always wanted to do it, but I wasn’t sure that it was going to be anything that I could do professionally. And lo and behold, it just kind of worked out.
So I feel like it was the right move for me, you know.
That’s great. It’s always good when couples who just have both been voice actors, you know, kind of align, everything aligns a certain way. Yeah, yeah.
That’s really cool. I’m curious about something because you are a graphic designer by trade. Well, you were when you went to college.
So I went to Art Institute. So could you tell me a little bit about… Did you do like character design?
Did you get some illustration? Or did you do just…
I was looking into storyboarding and stuff like that, yeah.
I was wondering if anything from that path helped you in terms of voice acting, maybe developing characters.
Yeah, I actually… Well, it helps for… Because I had to do like my own animations and stuff for some of the classes, and I would actually…
As far as getting voices for characters go, I would just do the voices, and Lucien would do the voices for me. I’d get some other friends and stuff if I needed them. It was actually pretty good practice for me, I think, at the time, just to kind of be like, oh, hey, I did this thing.
Let me just throw my voice in there and see what happens. It was kind of a two birds with one stone kind of thing for me.
Now, just having to review over your website has a very simple, clean, and effective look. Is that sort of like the look you’re going for? I’m sure, you know, we’re agents.
Is that sort of like, they want your simple and clean right there, or do you feel like they need all the bells and whistles?
I think everybody has their own preference and stuff. I prefer really simplistic pages. I actually…
Thank you for complimenting my website, actually. I don’t touch it as much as I probably should. I’ve actually been looking into doing just kind of a one page kind of thing, because I know a lot of people have been doing that lately.
Whereas, you know, as opposed to having to click links and stuff, you just have everything right there, all the information, and people can look at it, check out your stuff, and then go on their own way, you know. So I’ve been looking into streamlining it a little bit more. But I do think, kind of like with demos in general, I think people just have short attention spans and just want everything right then and there, so.
Absolutely, absolutely, nowadays especially.
Yeah, yeah.
So a wide range of characters that you do, a wide range, excuse me, a wide range of characters that you do. How do you develop each character’s voice?
I, pictures help me a lot, a lot. Especially for when I’m doing anime, or just in general when people give us voice references, which, you know, especially for anime, that happens a lot for video games. Not so much, but every once in a while.
If they play an audio reference for me, I find it tends to help if you kind of like mimic a little bit. Like, you can always do a take, because you can do multiple takes, usually up to like two or three. I tend to err towards mimicking the Japanese, just because a lot of the clients, I feel like, want something that matches.
I don’t know why, but it’s worked out for me more often than not. But if I do have another idea, I, you know, just send another take, and they’ll choose between the two, and I’ll find out if I get cast, like which one they chose. Because that happened to me with Aladdin from Maggi, The Labyrinth of Magic.
I submitted two takes. One where I was like, this is the voice that I would use for Aladdin. Here’s the voice that I want you to see, like, my range of boy voices, like what I can do just in case you want something a little bit older.
And they actually picked the older one, which I thought was strange, but I eventually moved it down to what I had preferred, and they didn’t say anything, so I was like, okay, well, this is what it is.
So when you started off doing voice over in California, they had you do a lot of young boy voices, like you said, but it looks like it was kill a kill where you started shifting to more female characters, protagonists, powerful characters. Yeah. What did you appreciate about being able to do more characters like that?
Because I’m certain you appreciated doing more young boy characters, but you definitely wanted to do more.
Yeah, I love just being able to expand my range in general. I think it’s good to have a lot of range, especially being a female. It’s good that you can play both genders to an extent, so it gives you more job opportunities.
But in general, I just like playing characters with, not just kind of stretch my vocal range, but my emotional range just because it makes me feel like a better actor if I can kind of throw more feeling into something. And if I can get myself to cry during a recording, like that’s a win for me. So I really appreciate when a character has a lot of depth to kind of get to play a little bit more with different aspects of them as a character.
Always good to fun. Speaking of crying, you’re lying, April. I still haven’t finished you yet because I don’t.
You don’t want to cry.
I don’t with the feels.
It’s pretty feelsy.
It’s always good to play around with the characters.
Yeah.
Well, Eric, unfortunately we ran out of time, but thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate it. Any projects you’d like to share?
Yeah. There’s my website that I should update more. It’s just ericamendosvoice.com, and I’m mostly…
I have a Facebook page, but I feel like I’m more active on Twitter and Instagram, which you can find me at Soon Derica, which is T-S-U-N-D-E-R-E-R-I-C-A. That’s what I meant to say, but yeah.
All right.
Erica, thank you so much.
Enjoy the rest of your con.
All right.
So we’re back at the VO Meter, and we are talking with James Brown, who is a voice actor that’s attending, as a general attending this year.
That’s right. Incognito.
Yeah. That’s the way to do it, sneak around, don’t let anybody know what you really do. So James, tell us how you’re enjoying the conference so far.
This is probably the largest panel I’ve been, I mean, largest con I’ve ever been to. Well, actually, you know, New York Comic Con is pretty…
That’s right there.
Yeah. But I’m pretty much enjoying it. The whole thing is I came down to meet a couple of friends I haven’t seen in a very long time, which is part of the reason why I’m down here, visit family, and so I said, you know, I might as well come to the panel.
I keep on saying panel. But I go to the con as well, and it’s been pretty great.
Awesome. What were you hoping to get out of the con once you signed up?
This has been for a few years now, but any time I go to a con now, I still come to have fun, get the merchandise and stuff, but a lot of it’s going to the voice actor panels and asking questions and seeing their experiences in the industry and finding out what I can glean from that, from my own.
And you are a voice actor yourself. What kind of work do you specialize in?
Animation or character voice over is what I’m really mostly for, whether it’s in games or animation, but I’ve done some audio plays in the past. I’ve done, like I said, video games, animation, YouTube, a little bit everywhere, except for commercial and audiobooks. I haven’t really done those two as much, but kind of spread out.
What panels did you go to that were about voice acting?
I went to see Lucian Dodge and Eric Mendez’s voice over panel. That was very interesting because Lucian Dodge is also a native of New York. So I didn’t even know that.
So I definitely went to, after the panel, I had a chance to talk to him real quick and just, you know, see, I just want to know if he still, you know, worked in New York area. He looks like he’s just mostly in LA now, but it was good just to connect with another fellow from New York.
What did you learn most about the panels?
I just really wanted to just hear how they felt about playing, portraying certain characters at that point. I think that’s the thing that stuck out the most for me. I asked about Erika’s involvement in a Gretzko, which is something I recently watched and it was very, very interesting because it was obviously a cartoon and it was satirical, this explanation of just harsh work life in Japan, but it can also apply here, which is why it translates so well.
I just wanted to see if it had any impact on her. When you play a lot of characters, some tend to stick out for certain reasons, whether it’s the character’s backstory or what have you. I want to see what she would say about that.
One of the things Chris and I are here for, maybe even the primary thing, is to network. Have you found that when you go to this or any other con, you’re able to actually find work? Not necessarily right away, but in the long run?
Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten any work yet, but that’s definitely the case. That definitely will happen for a lot of people. I would suggest anyone who’s serious about voiceover work to, whether it’s at a con or a workshop, to consider networking.
I know for me in the beginning, it was difficult because I was more of an introvert, but as I got more into voice acting, you kind of get forced out of that shell. So interviewing became more and more, or just networking became more and more part of my life. So I went to Anime Central this year, too, where they have the Bang Zoom auditions for one of their contests.
So I didn’t win, but that really wasn’t the point. It was to network, make a proper impression, and just have a good time. So I keep that in mind every time.
Well, I’ll give you a little secret. You know what a great way to meet people at a con? Is to host a podcast.
Oh, like this one. Oh, that’s what we’re doing right now, actually.
Actually, what I’ve been doing is I’ve been going up to the game room and everything, and since I have that first aisle of independent games, I will go up to them. I’ll say, oh, what’s your game about? And I’ll play for about good 10, 15 minutes.
Then I’ll talk to them about it, how the design. I go, oh, hey, by the way, are you looking for any voices for the game? They’re like, well, we haven’t thought about that, but we’ve been really intrigued.
I’m like, oh, well, you know, I usually have my business card. I’m like, I’m Chris. I happen to be a full-time professional voice actor.
This game is amazing. Can I have your card? I really want to sign up for your mailing list.
Make it like you’re not trying to sell yourself. It does stuff like, oh, you know, I do like, hey, I do voices. I talk for a living.
Pretty much, yeah. You know, we met Microsoft, because Microsoft has those events in New York.
Yeah, I was over there talking with them, too.
Playcrafting. Did a lot of that.
What do you think is the hardest part about meeting someone at a con?
Hmm. I think just getting over the initial jitters of, oh my god, it’s Josh Greeley or Max Middleman or Vic Mignana and just, you know, realizing that they are people. They are people just like you.
They probably went through the same struggles as you. And a lot of… I have not met one person that is like a jerk or anything like that.
You know, even if you’re a little nervous, I really think that it’s just more self-inflicted. There’s no reason to be nervous. Just talk to them and, you know, let them know you appreciate their work especially, you know, because they always appreciate that.
Yeah, that’s true. You have any other questions?
Yeah, I just want to kind of follow up with that. It’s amazing. You think, oh my gosh, here’s the guy who voiced so many shows I’m a fan of.
I’m really like… You kind of get the nerves and everything, but you go up and you see they’re very chill. They’ll come in, shake your hand.
They just got a big smile on their face, and they talk to you like they’re your best friend.
I got over that really quickly, Young, because when I was early in school, I was living in Georgia near Fort Gordon, and James Brown came to my school.
Yeah.
To perform? I guess just to say hi to kids. I really don’t remember.
All I remember was…
You had the whole entourage and the cape?
Ladies and gentlemen…
I have to tell you, remember I said that super introvert and my name is James Brown, the last thing I wanted was to meet this guy because I knew I would have to go in front of a lot of people because it was the assembly hall, and tell this man that my name is James Brown, and I did not want the audience laughing. I was very like, I hate my name and all that kind of stuff. Every time someone says my name, they go, I feel good.
Because everyone is a comedian, right?
Everyone is super funny and hilarious when they are kids. I hate kids.
I was 44 and I almost did the same thing when we started.
Those flashbacks. But I ended up getting his autograph as a result, and got over that really quickly. So, when I meet someone famous, it doesn’t really bother me as much.
Unless it’s Morgan Freeman, and I will freak the heck out. But outside of that…
Well, James, thanks for joining us here on the VO Meter. Where can people find you if they want to hire you?
Find me on my website at www.jamesbrownjrva.com. That’s also my Instagram and my Twitter, JamesBrownJRVA. And I also stream from time to time.
Art streams, but also voiceover streams on my Twitch.
Alright, thanks again. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
Thanks a lot, man.
Have a good one. We survived.
Great weekend? Same here, man. This was a great year.
How many years now has it been at this location? Is this the second year here for it, too? Cool.
I like this location.
It feels a little bigger than the Baltimore Convention Center was. Just a little more space for everything. This has been really cool.
It’s definitely not subtropical like it is in Baltimore.
So, yay for that.
Oh, there’s a Sebastian.
Nice Sebastian cosplay.
Oh, all right.
Yes.
Oh, thank you.
Great, pal.
Take off that ridiculous tailcoat.
You look like a crow.
You can’t do nothing.
Yeah, there we go.
Thank you.
Oh, cool.
So, guys, thank you so much for coming. I see a lot of familiar faces. Thank you guys so much for coming to the other panels over this weekend.
This one is a little less educational, and well, maybe not so much, depending on the questions. I do this panel mostly because, kind of for the same reasons that I do the creating voices panel that I did on Friday, because I find so often, you know, we go to and we do general Q&As, and so many people have questions about voice work and stuff, and we spend so much time answering those that a lot of people who might have questions about other aspects of the industry, like the writing process, the directing process, casting, and just really anything about it. And I have been very fortunate in my career to, aside from acting, also work for about 10 years as an ADR script writer.
I’ve been trained by Funimation to be a director for them, and I’ve assistant directed and end directed a couple of shows for them, but it’s definitely the one I have the least amount of experience in. But that said, because of my involvement with all three of these, I know how they all work fairly intricately. And I also have a pretty good knowledge about the rest of the aspects of the industry.
So, with that in mind, if you have had at any point any sort of burning questions that you’ve ever wanted to know about the writing process or how we go about deciding dialogue, or if there’s an aspect of it that confuses you, or you want a clarification on it, this is the chance to do it. I would just ask if at any point you do have a question, please just get up and form a line at this lovely, lonely little microphone. And we’ll do it that way.
I’ll also, in the interim, just talk. I’m not going to stare at you and just wait for questions.
Or will I? It is Sunday.
It is Sunday.
I think most of us are ready for a nap at this point. Hey Shane, I think this might be a little hot.
Is there a way to turn it down just a little bit?
Much better, thank you sir. Alright. So, voice acting, writing and directing for anime.
Does anybody here not know at all the process that goes from an anime being made in Japan and then the entire process of it coming over to the States? Does anybody here familiar at all with that? One or two of you?
Alright, cool, cool.
What is your question? I have a question about if you were to, say, write an anime, how would you go about pitching it?
Oh, I’ll rephrase. Not writing an original anime because that’s all done over in Japan. I’m talking about writing the scripts for the dubs.
This is mostly about writing, directing and voicing for anime dubs.
That should be at the end of the title.
I’ll change that for the next con. But yeah, no, very sorry. Okay, so we have a few people who are fairly familiar with it.
So I guess just for now, I’ll talk about the process of bringing over an anime from Japan to the States. If at any point you have a question, just line on up and I’ll get to you. So let’s say we have an anime that has just been made.
For example, we’ll say a fairly popular one, like something that was in Shonen Jump. Those almost always get some sort of anime adaptation eventually. And they’re generally known as safe bets.
So back in the 90s and the early 2000s, many of the major industry leaders for the American side of the industry would go to Japan sometimes throughout the year or at the beginning of each new season. And there was one or two… There was a convention in Japan that was dedicated just for industry people.
There was no attendees of any kind. It wasn’t a fan gathering. It was strictly for people who work in the industry.
And this is where shows and different pilot episodes and stuff would be viewed in a big room with a lot of producers and directors and investors. And they could all see what the new ideas and concepts were or what the new shows that were coming out were going to be. And they could decide for themselves, okay, we want to bid on that, we want to bid on this, and we could probably…
And just figuring out what they want. And then, by the end of the weekend, there would be a bid war between all of the major American distribution companies for who would get the rights to dub and release the shows.
And at that point, it’s a fairly straightforward process. You get a contract, you figure out all the… exactly how stuff is supposed to be dubbed, or if they even require you to do a dub, which it’s universal now.
Most studios absolutely want you to do a dub for an American release.
The others, they’ll create the contract, they’ll set a date for when they will expect this thing to be available and streeted in the United States, and figure out a schedule for sending over all the materials for it and everything else. And back in the late 90s and the aughts, they would send it to us on a boat. Like these hard drives, huge hard drives, and sometimes several hard drives, and VHS tapes with the original files, with the original reels and everything on them.
They’d be, you know, sent on a boat, so sometimes it would take a very long time for us to get the materials, come to the states, and then we begin the process of localization. The first process, obviously, is translation. And Funimation has an entire department dedicated to translation.
They have like three or four full-time translators, most of them born in Japan, that then learned English and we contract them, or they move to the states and then they work for Funimation. And they go through it. One person does it, and then the person above them checks it, and the person above them re-checks it, and makes sure that everything is as close to the original intention and all of the information that the Japanese were trying to convey.
What they were trying to get across is there. And then from that translation, it is given to a subtitler who has a… Oh, sorry, is that answering your question there?
Okay, yeah. I’m going to go through the process, but I’ll stop real quick. Yeah, what is your question?
It’s no rush. Okay, cool. Appreciate it.
So this is then handed over to a subtitler who has to deal with… Now, there’s a program out there called Aegisub, which it’s life-saving, because originally what you would have to do is basically do this really convoluted code to tell the computer that would produce the subtitles, where the subtitle will begin, what the subtitles were, when the subtitles should stop being on screen, and then you do it for every single line, every bit of information. And one of the big challenges for that, too, is whenever you’re producing any sort of media that is going to be released in the States, it has to meet certain regulations.
And there are even regulations for subtitles. For example, have you ever on an official show, like a DVD or something, ever seen subtitles that were not white or yellow? That are not white or yellow on an official DVD?
Not a subtitle, not a fansub, because only fansubs ever used…
Well, Animaco would sometimes use green subtitles, when someone said something with a yellow subtitle, and then they need to put another subtitle on there quickly, they put it at that green.
Like a solid green? Oh yeah, like if someone else is talking and they need to put that over that or whatever, that actually, you can’t do that anymore. At least as far as I understand it, because the regulations for subtitles are, first, they must be either green, they must be either white or yellow, because those are colors that are easily seen even by colorblind people.
And those are two colors that are very easy to pop, no matter what the background image might be. You’re not going to wash out pure white or pure yellow in most situations, so it’s easy to see. You can also only have so many characters on screen at one time.
Think of it as like, each line of dialogue on a subtitle can’t not be any longer than a tweet. Like the original Twitter length, like 120 characters or something. So like, yeah, not the new length, which is just liberating.
But yeah, you can only have a little like 120 characters worth at any time, and they can only be on screen for a certain amount of time before you put the next bit up. So the challenge at that point becomes, how do we get across all of this sometimes vast amounts of information that are being given in the Japanese dialogue when we can only have this much stuff information on screen at one point? So anytime you ever watch a subtitle, you have already watching a truncated version of the original translation.
Subtitles are not accurate translation. They are bite-sized. They are all that information and all the nuance and the subtlety and everything shrunken down to just the bare information that is important enough for you to know so that you can follow along with the story.
And back when I first started out, ADV Films, when I was first collecting… When DVDs were first the new thing for anime releases, some companies like Animanga and ADV experimented with adding separate layers of subtitles. They actually…
ADV would have one part of subtitles, you could turn that on and it’s just the regular subs, and then you had two or three other forms of subtitles you could switch between that would give you all the information that you weren’t getting in the subtitle. Which was, if there was a word that you may not necessarily be familiar with, or a historical figure that’s being referenced that you may not be familiar with, those subtitles would pop up and give you a brief synopsis of exactly what it is they’re talking about. Even down to, like, if you were walking…
If you had a character going down, let’s say, Akihabara, and there’s all of these signs and stuff up to see different shops and everything else like that, they would have subtitles to pop up and show you, this is what this is, this is what this is, this is what this is. I mean, you’re getting all this information, but it became… It got to the point where there was so many subtitles and so much information on screen, you couldn’t see the picture.
You couldn’t see the animation. And that’s not fun for anybody. So we…
originally it was said, you can’t do that anymore. And so the industry standard now is certain amount of characters, only in that section on the bottom, and they can only be on screen for a certain amount of time, and they can only be white or yellow. So then, after we have that subtitle version up, this kind of truncated, bite-sized bit of information, it is then the job of an ADR scriptwriter to take that translation and those subtitles and all the time codes that go with it, and then try and bring back some of the nuance and the characterizations and stuff that were lost in the subtitles.
Does that make sense? So, more often than not, with subtitles, because we have to focus so much on just the bare bones information, you lose a lot of the subtlety, and you lose a lot of the… Sometimes, there have been plenty of times where I’m reading a translation for something, and it sounds like a character is being insanely kind and very complimentary to someone, but then I found out actually reading the translation and talking to the actual translator about the scene, and they’re like, no, this is all underhanded.
Like, everything this character is saying is actually very, very mean. She’s just slipping it in under the veil of all these very nice, kind words, and if you don’t speak Japanese and you’re just reading the subtitles, you’re gonna completely miss that, because all it says is just from reading it, it just seems like, oh, she’s being very kind. So the whole point, then, of the dub is to try and, for the English-speaking audience, bring those nuances back from that point, and when I first started writing scripts, I would be given roughly for one 25-minute episode, I’d be given anywhere from a week to two weeks to go through the entire thing with the subtitles.
I find every single character, mark them in the script, write a time code for every single instance. Anybody not know what a time code is? It’s totally cool if you raise your hand.
Okay, just for brief explanation, time code is something on a video, any sort of video. You never see it in actual broadcast or anything like that on DVD, but the time code is used for production purposes. In the terms of anime, each number represents an hour, minute, second, and frame of the animation.
And for anime, the frame always caps out at 24, 25, something like that. So you will always have 24 milliseconds basically, or frames, before you get to the next second of time code. Your job as a writer is to go in and find every single instance down to the frame of where someone’s mouth does this.
Or if somebody is throwing a punch, or does this. Like, reactions in Dragon Ball are what we call Foley. So anytime Goku does a big, haaa, power scream or whatever in the script, I would mark, okay, his mouth starts to open at exactly this time code, and it is an O-M power scream.
O-M, open mouth. If someone is, like, Vegeta’s powering up, and he’s being like, haaa, C-T, power up, clenched teeth. C-M, closed mouth.
M-N-S, mouth not seen. The character is on screen, but their mouth is not actually in the shot, or off, the character is talking, off screen. And you just kind of have to guess as to where that frame is that they actually start talking or making a noise.
And you go through the entire 25 minutes of an episode and find every single frame where someone starts to talk or make a sound. And then you go through with the subtitles and you then start the localization process for the dub, which the majority of the job and the majority of the time that is spent is trying to make sure that the words that we’re typing both get across all the information in the subtitles while also not sounding truncated and not sounding awkward or not like someone would talk normally. Like we don’t want to sound like we’re reading something.
It needs to sound like a very natural thing. And so the words need to flow in a very natural cadence. But we also have to make sure that that natural cadence is not screwed up by random flaps just stopping in the middle of a word and then starting again.
Because so often with the Japanese language, our syntax is different. It’s completely reversed. They sometimes take much longer to say certain amounts of information than it would for us.
So very often we’ll have times where the translation is this long, but the line is actually that long in terms of the amount of consonants and vowels and stuff that are being used. So you have to figure out a way to get this little amount of information to fit in all of these flaps and sound natural. And not give false information.
And not just willy-nilly add words that absolutely have nothing to do with the story or the character, because that’s going to make stuff very messy, very quick. So the majority of the time is spent just making sure, okay, does that fit? I would literally sit while watching and yell out as if I was recording in the booth every single line at least six or seven times to make sure that they fit as close to perfect so that when they then are sent to the booth and the director is going over the show and they are reading it as well, they can see right away that the script is working, that it will fit the mouth flaps.
And there is always going to be a little bit of error there because my read speed might not be as fast or as slow as another actor’s read speed. So sometimes my dialogue, they will have to take out a word or two or add a word or two just so that actor can speak at their normal pace. But for the most part, it’s pretty much already locked in.
The script won’t change from that point unless the director is just like, this line is stupid, what was he thinking? It’s like, anyone fixes it. And then from that point, the director watches the whole show, the episode, checks the script, makes sure they’re happy with it, that they’ve been researching the show at the same time that I’ve been researching and watching and writing it.
And then they go around casting, and from there, eventually, actors come in, we record the show. What we used to do was, a writer would be given six episodes at a time, six chunks, back when DVDs were the new thing, four to six episodes. And it’d be given roughly a month to write all six of those episodes, and then the director would have roughly a month to two months to record all six of those episodes, cast people, and really make them perfect.
And then it would go to mix, and the mix engineers would do their magic and make stuff for the nice 5.1, 7.1 surround sounds for those audio files that we are. And within another three to six months after that, the DVD with those first six episodes would be out and on the shelves. So roughly from the time of a Japanese show coming out, running its course, being bought, brought over to the States, written, directed, cast, recorded, mixed, and streeted, was roughly as short as six months to as long as a year and a half.
It was a long wait time for a lot of people. It was really hard to be an anime fan in the late 90s, early aughts. You had to wait a long time for stuff.
And those of you that have been anime fans since the early 90s and the late 80s, you had it even worse, because you were going for laser discs and VHS and stuff. Did anybody ever collect laser discs back in the day? Oh my god.
Okay, for those who did not, let me just kind of paint a picture for you. Imagine loving the show so much that you wanted to go collect it. So you buy your laser disc that big, like you could kill someone with this disc, and you get two episodes with subtitles only, no extra features, no nothing.
You dropped anywhere from $80 to $110 per disc for those two episodes, and you had to wait about a year for the other two episodes, the next two episodes to come out.
It was horrific.
It was horrible.
So when VHS came along, we were getting like, holy crap, I can get three new VHSs of Dragon Ball every three months. We were so happy about it, but nowadays, it’s dang near instantaneous. Anybody watching My Hero Academia this season?
With the exception of the last three episodes, because there were some snafus in the scheduling and with some materials, we kind of fell behind. But for the first eight to ten episodes of this current season, we released the dub the same day as the subtitle came out. We get our materials two weeks ahead of time.
Now, instead of the script writers having two weeks to write maybe one script or just a week, which is the norm, one week, one script, that’s absolutely doable. Now, those of us that were really good at it and very fast, now, ever since Space Dandy, which was the first simuldub that we did, Space Dandy, if you watched it on Toonami three or four years ago, you were literally watching it before the Japanese even saw their own version because of time differences. Because they’re literally a day ahead of us in terms of time zones, so we released it before they even released their own version.
The English came out first for Space Dandy. Ever since then, Funimation was like, okay, we’re going to try to do this for everything. For the last three years, every season, roughly 12 to 18 shows, every three months, we simul-dub every one of them.
It’s becoming the new industry standard, trying to get it out as fast as possible. Now, DVDs still come out within a year after it, but you get to see the dub at the same time now as the sub online on whatever service you have, like Crunchyroll or Funimation or Anime Network or whatever, any of the legal ones anyway. But now the writers have 48 hours to 14 hours to write their scripts.
Within a day of getting the material, within a day of the episode coming out, if we didn’t already have the materials, we would get it the day that it came out. Someone, sometimes a time code or a translator would wake up at 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock in the morning to start translating because of the time difference. The show aired in Japan during mainstream time, but it’s 2 a.m. over here.
They had to translate it, send it off, and it was time coded, then it was subtitled. So within that same day, then the day after that, it’s handed over to the writer, and they have 48 hours to write the script, send it on to the director, who then has to cast from it without holding auditions very often because we don’t have time for the auditions anymore. We want to make sure it has to get out as fast as possible.
So they will start to use people that they will consistently cast people that they have worked with before, that they know can do this work fast, efficient, and make it sound like we have been spending hours and hours and weeks making this show. The amazing thing is we did it right. Funimation did it right anyway.
I say we. I’m a contractor for Funimation. I’m not an employee of Funimation.
This is all opinion. But I feel like Funimation did it the right way because the first company to try to do this super fast thing was Sentai Filmworks, which is kind of the remnants of old school ADV films. And they tried several years ago to do a thing where they were telling the Japanese, hey, you give us the rights, we’ll have your entire show out in a month.
And we would get scripts. They would have me write a script. They would send it to me and they’d say, we don’t have time for you to write it.
Just time code it, mark the foley and send it in. The director would have to rewrite the script on the fly. And their dubs plummeted in quality as a result of it.
It looked like bad 70s live action dubs all over again. It was just like we took a massive step back in quality when doing that. Animation, on the other hand, found the sweet spot where we can have it fast but still keep the quality.
And that’s what we’ve been doing now for the last three or four years. And that’s kind of a very bare bones what it takes from an anime made in Japan to it being released for you to watch and enjoy here in the States, so you’re dubbed. We’ve come a long way.
We’ve come a long way from when I was a kid. We’re just a step away, I think, now from beaming it straight into your brain. But we’ll see.
Can you imagine? The moment they invent that technology, people will be watching Hentai in public places. It was just like, what are you watching?
You don’t want to know. I see fan service behind your eyes. Yes, your question, sir.
Thank you so much for your patience.
No worries. So this isn’t directly about anime. It’s an appropriate question to ask.
And I was wondering if you had any tips about voice acting or any resources I can use.
Actually, if you look up, because I think people have filmed and put up videos of my creating voices panel that I did on Friday that covers exactly what you just asked. It’s all about the safety, like the safe ways to, on your own time at home, practice coming up with new voices and characters and how to get comfortable with that and with performing and stuff. And yes, absolutely, I think that can help in dungeon mastering, especially because it’s so much fun to get to come up with all those different voices for all the NPCs that you’re going to be in control of.
So, I mean, look that up, just Josh Greeley creating voices. I try to do the panel now every con, but I can only do it once. But that will answer your questions, I believe.
Great, thank you.
Yeah, absolutely, thank you. And thank you again for your patience.
Yes, sir?
Okay, so I know that usually you can take more leeway with comedic shows because of different senses of humor. Yes. What’s the non-comedic show that you’ve taken the most leeway with, and what was your mentality behind that?
That I had a lead in?
You’ve been as a scriptwriter.
As a scriptwriter, non-comedy.
Tokyo Ghoul. That was my favorite that I had, like non-comedy. I mean, every show in some form, especially super dramatic shows, are going to have some form of comedy, because you’ve got to have a break from all the super crazy stuff.
But, I mean, unless it’s Attack on Titan, because that’s just sadistic. But, for Tokyo Ghoul, the approach to that was just, for me, because I wasn’t the lead writer, I would write every second or third episode. Monica Rial was the one who was writing the majority of the scripts for that show.
But I got to do the first couple of episodes of Tatum’s character in that show.
Tsukiyama, thank you.
Yeah, the cannibal, the epicurean.
And my big thing for him was, I just had this idea of his character after watching the subtitles and then watching the Japanese version first and just the way that he speaks, the way he uses language and everything, I knew immediately it was going to be a Tatum role. And I was like, he’s the only person who can make this work. And because Tsukiyama is very much about books and literature and stuff as well, and that’s kind of how he works his way into a friendship with Kaneki, I wanted very much to capture that well-read, intelligent, epicurean, make him sound like just a very charming, very educated, smart, artistic person.
But play with the language in such a way that it could very easily be construed if you know the character as manipulative and evil and all this stuff. It was a very fun challenge to take the subtitles and take the information that they were giving us and that character. And we didn’t change anything about the character.
We didn’t change anything he said or anything. We just changed the way he said it. Made it a little more palpable to an English speaking audience.
And because we were able to, kind of like what I was talking about earlier, because we were able to kind of play with his language a little bit more and work that nuance in of like you’re not sure as you’re listening to him if you can trust him or not. I feel like a lot of that stuff is lost in just the straight up subtitle information. So the fact that we were able to do that and it worked and we pulled it off and Tatum’s performance sells it 110%.
I’m really proud of my writing for that character and on that show. But to kind of talk about, once you also brought up about comedic writing, yes, we have a lot more freedom when it comes to comedic shows. Case in point, I just finished recording E-Safe or High School DXD Season 4 a few, you know, about a week or two ago.
And that’s the type of show where so much of the dialogue is not important to the overall story. There’s actually no information being, you know, like no real information or anything being said or given most of the time. It’s just reactions basically to the ridiculous situations that are happening.
We do have a lot more freedom to really localize and to bring in more of modern American humor into some of the lines. Like, oh god, what was it? Like, one of Issei’s lines this past season was, You made me feel weak like there was nothing I could do.
And like, and it completely, like it sells. People get it, like, you know, an English speaking audience is immediately going to get that reference and get that humor. And so often, and sometimes people don’t want that, they want, you know, I just want it to be as pure and true to the Japanese as possible.
But if we do that, we’re doing the majority of the people that aren’t hardcore Japanese anime fans, like anime fans or someone who knows Japanese culture and language and references, whether they’re political or pop culture or whatever, intimately well. Those people are very rare in this fandom. People that actually do know all that stuff.
And so if we’re just catering to that small group instead of trying to make jokes and stuff that the broad audience can appreciate, then we’re just doing the majority of the fandom a disservice. The main point of Japanese comedy is to make you laugh. But so often, their jokes and our jokes don’t cross.
Because the syntax is reversed and there’s cultural differences, and so much of their jokes are based in puns. And there is literally nothing in our language, no pun that exists, or really anything that is an equivalent. That is like a direct translation.
Anything that we can give you, like we can only give you a bare bones… Like exactly what they’re literally saying, but unless you know the joke that’s within that literal translation, you’re not going to get it. It’s just going to be this, what is he talking about?
Why is everybody laughing? Then you’re just lost, and you feel like you’re not in on the joke. And that makes you feel ostracized.
So it’s so much more… At that point, we have to think of ourselves more as caretakers of the creator’s original intention. Does that make sense?
His intent is to make you laugh, so we’re going to give you the best joke that we can that the broadest audience will understand. And that way, we’re doing you a service, and we’re doing the creator a service. Does that make sense?
Awesome, thank you very much. Yes, sir?
So this is going to be sort of related to the topic, but also answering one of my own questions I had about background tests in general. So when Akihisa’s sister comes in to the series, was it very difficult for you to get into that, to be able to go through with what was going on, knowing Carly’s character?
The thing that made it hard was the fact that I know Carly. She was like a sister to me at that point in time, literally like a sister, so for this person that I look up to as like a big sister, to be playing my big sister in a show, but she really wants me?
That was awkward.
That was a little awkward. But I mean, I’ve done, again, I’ve been an anime fan since I was nine years old. I grew up seeing fanservice and stuff like that too.
You can’t shock me with, like, anime does not shock me, you know, anymore. So it’s just, at that point I was just like, okay, this is the joke we’re going with, and I just, I roll with the punches. You know, I tried to react exactly as I felt Aki would be reacting in that situation.
It came out very fun. It actually wasn’t very funny. They handled it in such a way that it wasn’t obscene.
It was actually just very funny. So yeah, I appreciated it for that. If it had been a little more, if they had pushed it just a little bit further though, then it would have been uncomfortable.
I’m glad that they did it though.
And to sort of go in line with that topic, is situations like that really difficult for some people where if it’s with someone that they know, is it hard for them to do the performance because they know the person, and they can’t get into, I can’t feel this sort of relationship with that person because people are close friends.
I’m sure there are. I can’t really speak for anybody else other than my own experiences, but I do know that there are many actors and actresses that are very uncomfortable with a lot of the material that happens specifically in fan service shows because there are so many of them lately, especially, that have moved more and more towards trying to do stuff that’s more and more extreme. Like, the joke is that it’s offensive type thing.
And using obviously children as the result of, as the focus of these sexual situations and everything. And just there’s a lot of us that are very uncomfortable with that. And I get that there’s cultural differences and things like that, but you can’t expect people that have grown up in one culture and see that as offensive or disgusting or something and expect them to just be comfortable with it because it’s a job.
So there are many actors and actresses that just will not do those roles. Or if they have to, because we all need to work. We’re starving artists, every one of us.
They’ll use pseudonyms. And there’s plenty of actors and actresses who do that too.
Thank you guys so much. You asked such great questions, and you really were just expert interviewers in your own right. So thank you for going out into the field and picking the brains of some of these incredibly talented people.
I’m super jealous because I’m huge fans of some of the guests. Todd Haberkorn, in recent years, the voice of one of the main characters from Fairy Tale, and of course, one of my all-time top favorite anime voice actors, Johnny Yong Bosch. You might have known him as the second Black Ranger from Power Rangers, but he also had an extended anime career doing such voices as Vash the Stampede from Trigun.
He was Albert in Gonkutsuo, which is a wonderful re-imagining of the story of the Count of Monte Cristo, so I highly recommend that. And he’s just got an incredible voice, and of course, Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. Just so, so amazed.
I just wish I could have been there to nerd out about audio equipment. I was so jealous when you brought up that question, Paul.
Out to Johnny?
Yeah, with Johnny.
Yeah, that was a funny story about Johnny, actually. I wandered into that completely unknowing it was going to happen. We actually tried to schedule him, so the way these interviews work is they ask for requests for guests’ time months in advance.
So I put in applications for pretty much everybody, and they sent back the ones that we could get, and they told us, unfortunately, Johnny’s not available for your show. So we said, okay, great, we have plenty of people to talk to. So we did, I guess it was Todd Haberkorn, who we had just finished up, and we had a big break, so we separated.
And Chris, I think, went up to the room. I went to get some coffee. As I came back from the Starbucks, the staff at the show grabbed me and said, do you want to interview Johnny?
And I said, uh, sure. And at this point, I was still kind of half asleep, having the coffee in my hand. I had no idea who they were even talking about.
Couldn’t remember. So I said, sure. Right now?
And they’re like, yep, you got to go right now. So apparently it was a cancellation or a no-show. So they shoved me in the room, and I turn on the phone and I’m like, hi.
I don’t… I wasn’t prepared for this. I actually told them, I was honest.
I said, they just pulled me in here. I didn’t know I was going to be here, so I’m kind of winging it. And I started asking those questions.
I was just making up as I went along. Luckily, I remembered as he was answering the questions who he was, but it took me a while.
Thank goodness they’ll appreciate that if you know who they are.
If you listen, you can tell by some of the questions that I was kind of pulling it out of my you-know-where, especially the gear one. But like you said, that turned out to be a great answer because he is a total gearhead, just like us.
That’s perfect. And you do find a lot of voice actors who are musicians as well. And when you have that level of audio nerd, I don’t know, it’s match made in heaven, except for your wallet, of course.
Yeah, I just wish I had asked that question earlier so I could have really geeked out, because that was the last question, and they only give us a certain amount of time. And then the people came in and gave me the hook right after I started to answer.
Gotcha, gotcha. But all of them gave such incredible answers. And one thing that was interesting to me is just hearing how the possible ways of getting into voice over have changed so much, even from the people that we followed, like who were successful as we got interested in voice over and stuff like that.
But even though their experience may not be as relatable or as replicatable as it is now, or as it could be, they still had such, there were still so much nuggets of wisdom that they gave. And you can tell that just some of the some of the mantras of succeeding in any business, like trying, trying again, if you fail, being willing to fail, and working through it, and being a good person to work with, and honoring deadlines, and just working your tail off to succeed in your dream. It was just incredibly helpful and inspiring.
You know, my biggest takeaway was the dedication that everyone seemed to have nonstop drive to complete what they wanted to do, like you said, follow their dream. And that’s a theme that I guess resonates, like you said, with any business, but especially for people who are our listeners that may be just starting out, that maybe haven’t had the success they thought they would right away. Keep at it, keep plugging ahead, and eventually you’ll get there.
Absolutely, yeah. And it’s difficult because you either don’t get feedback or you get straight up rejection. Lots and lots and lots of rejection.
And you can’t let that affect you too negatively because it will suck out your energy and your drive. And as we have established, that is the one thing that will help you succeed more than anything, is the drive to keep going.
So Chris, what was your biggest takeaway?
My biggest takeaway was just hearing everyone’s experience, how they record in Japan versus America. And honestly, just as Sean touched base on, the dedication. Erica Mendes said that she just didn’t want to have anyone tell her what to draw, so she decided to do her own thing and then went into voice acting.
Just a lot of passion people have. And really honestly, I want to touch base on what you and Sean said about if you don’t get feedback, but if you do get feedback, take it to heart and try to look into the good of everything. Not to talk forever, but when I got a phone call about hearing from an agent that I have a speech impediment, I stopped and thought, wow, this guy took time out of his day to call me and let me know that.
So that’s a really good thing. So maybe I also thought, so in one way he likes me a little bit, or I made an impact on his life.
Yeah, definitely. Sometimes no news is worse than bad news.
Absolutely.
And don’t be deaf to criticism, like Chris is saying. So it’s important, like if you’re getting negative feedback, maybe you do need more training, or you need vocal training, or whatever. So there might be more work involved, but if this is that important to you, you gotta rise up to the task.
So you were mentioning that you were fascinated by the differences between Japanese recording and American recording. Chris, can you talk a little bit more about what was surprising to you?
Absolutely. How they refuse to record unless everyone’s there. A lot of times we have our own home studio set up at home, and we don’t really record when anyone’s in the room.
Sometimes it’s one person or not many. So what they do is they just basically sit like an old-fashioned radio play, and they have all the voice actors set up, and one person stands up, says his lines, and they get back up, and the other person, his or her, say their lines. So it’s really cool in how they feed off the energy of one another, and it’s really impactful.
It can make a much more better show, radio play, what have you, just by doing that.
That is so cool. I mean, you hear over here, they do that occasionally, but it used to be far, even just a decade or two ago, it was far more prevalent. And I wish it was like that more often, but I understand the logistics of coordinating everyone’s schedules like that can be really difficult.
Now it’s only really top-notch film productions that do that, it seems. Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
So you have the budget for it, but it’s just so cool that they put that cultural importance on it.
Yeah, Masaya said that basically home studios don’t exist in Japan.
Yeah, it was really difficult. I mean, I’ve talked about this a little bit, but it’s very difficult to break into, like, or as a non-native resident, to break into Japanese voiceover, because you do need a certain level of bilingualism to communicate with, like, the producers and agents and stuff like that, and you have to be there. Like, you have to be in Tokyo.
You have to be in a large city to record, because they will not accept it, like, otherwise.
Yeah, I was surprised that some of the… Maybe it’s because of the level of success they’ve achieved, but I was surprised that some of the other voice actors we talked to didn’t have to make more trips to Japan. It seems like once they’ve made those inroads, they can still do the bi-continent recording.
Like, I asked Johnny that question, expecting him to say, yeah, I’m back and forth all the time, but he said not really, unless he’s doing motion capture.
Well, so much of that is they’re working with the companies who buy the distribution rights rather than the original creators.
I guess that’s true, yeah. Last year, we talked to some actors who were still working with the actual originators of the content, like Jamie McGonigal and Mike Rosenthal-Nicholas. They were doing some recording with the actual creators of the content, and in that case, I think they did have to travel some more, so different styles and career paths, yeah.
One thing that fascinates me while we’re still on the topic is that apparently, they actually record the… it’s almost like native language dubbing, because they will actually do the animation first, and then they will have this sort of ensemble come in to record to their, like, to lip flaps. And, like, it’s just such an interesting difference in the way that they produce animation versus how we do it here.
So Chris, what was your favorite question?
My two favorite questions would have to be what skills aside from talent do you need to exceed in the business, and how do you maintain that level of talent and maintain work? So hearing different people’s, like, viewpoints on that, saying, like, well, what I do is… Bryce Papenbuck, believe it or not, he’s, I think, a fourth black belt, fourth degree black belt, and he kind of uses that to…
He mentioned outside, he uses that to kind of, you know, keep himself calm and everything, get some frustration out. And, you know, how all these talents, Eric Amendez, is an art, and all these fields of talent used can lead into voice over.
Yeah, I actually like that question a lot. I was listening back to the interviews I wasn’t present for, and yeah, some of their answers were really insightful into what makes them who they are, and then how they can bring that to their work.
Actually, now that you mentioned martial arts, I know a lot of, especially anime talent, Kara Edwards mentioned that at MAVO, or the last time we went, because she’s in, like, a black belt as well in karate. And she’s just like, yeah, it’s one of the most relevant skills I have, because she’s fighting, her characters are fighting so often. So she knows how to sound like she’s fighting.
And of course, the meditative and, like, the exercise, and all good benefits. But if I may, one of the things that really stuck with me is when you were talking with Todd Haberkorn, and you’re talking about the work-life balance. And you see this in a lot of the people that we, like in Our Voice Over Idols and stuff like that, they never really thought they’d get into voice acting, but they like to perform or they like to act.
So for them, this seemed to be the perfect way to express themselves and to, like, to do that, to harness their artistic creativity. But they’re not obsessed with it. They don’t let it take over their lives.
They pursue other jobs. They pursue other projects that are interesting to them. And they have families and lives that they try to cultivate and nurture.
And the more life experience that you have, the more you can draw from as an actor. So I think it’s really important, yes, you do have to work very, very hard, especially to get your foot in the door in this career. But you can’t let it dominate your life and get you to lose focus of why you got into it in the first place.
You have to love what you do.
You do have to love what you do, for real.
Yeah, you’re right. Todd had some fascinating thoughts on that. He was talking about the audiobook narrator who recorded in his car and had to wait for traffic to drive by in order to get takes.
That’s just insane.
That’s not a Cinderella story. I loved when he said it. He was like, no, that’s horrible.
You know what’s funny? A guest from last year, Dick Mignana, had a similar sort of discussion with us about life balance. If you remember the episode from last year’s Oticon, he actually stopped us in the middle of it because his phone alarm went off to celebrate his moment of thankfulness that he has every day at noon.
So it happened right in the middle of our interview, and we just stopped and all had a moment of silence so he could sit there and reflect. It wasn’t lost on me that he and Todd are good friends. There’s this video out there you may have seen where they had a swimming competition, and over the footage of them swimming in a pool, someone had done some anime drawings, some anime footage of them as characters racing each other, and they would flash back and forth between cartoon animation and then the live footage.
But it was a real race in a pool, and Vic actually sort of kicked his butt. So then at the end, they’re actually doing fake synchronized swimming, like that old SNL skit with Martin Short and Harry Shearer, where they’re a team, but they’re doing basic moves like touching their elbows and nose. So it’s a great video if you get a chance.
Check that out with Todd Haberkorn and Vic Mignana.
And what’s interesting is that if you listen to their voices and see some of the projects they’ve done, like Edward Elric for Vic from Full Metal Alchemist and Todd’s character from D. Grey Man, they actually have a very similar vocal type, kind of like very youthful and slightly higher pitched male sound. But they’re best friends, so there you go.
Be friends with your competition.
So yeah, to touch base on that, Sean, I know Max Middleman, Ray Chase and Robbie Damian, they have a little group they formed together called Lava, which is loud, annoying and very annoying. And it’s really funny what they do. They may be like…
They just talk about their nerd side of everything, and they’ll post videos where they’re having like a nerf competition. I think there was one time where Ray Chase and Robbie Damian and the other two voice actors of Final Fantasy XV all dressed up as their characters, cosplayed them and went to a con together. And they were actually like…
Robbie Damian was Prompto, Ray Chase was Noctis, and they were acting as their characters the entire con. And it’s… You guys check out their videos.
They’re really funny.
Just so you can get it, it’s an improvisational, like I-M-P-E-R-V, improvisational anime and pop culture variety show. So I think that gives you a fairly good idea of what kind of show it is. But it sounds like a lot of fun and very funny.
I’ll have to check it out.
All right. So that pretty much wraps up our discussion on our experience at Otakon. I want to thank Chris Dattoli for joining me again and James Brown for joining me last minute or joining Chris more accurately.
He picked up for me when I skipped town and went to a fish concert. It wasn’t exactly pressing business, but it was fun. So I want to thank both of them.
I want to thank the staff at Otakon, especially Alice Wilson, who actually when I walked in the door this year gave us a huge compliment. She said, Oh, I listened to your show and it was really good. She said, she probably shouldn’t have admitted this to me, but she said, Normally, I just kind of spot check these things, but I listened to your entire show and really was impressed with the questions you asked the actors.
It was different than everyone else’s content. And I said, Thanks, that’s really nice. So I want to thank the staff at Oticon, and hopefully we’ll be back next year.
So coming up next, we have our interview with the incredible Pat Fraley. Pat has been doing voices for characters and animation, audiobooks, and just about every other VO genre under the sun for more than 20 years. So I’m super excited.
He’s also a personal voice acting hero of mine, so I can’t wait to have him on here and to pick his brain about his experience and the various. His work is both a voice actor and one of the premier voice acting educators available. So other than that, Paul, tell us about MAVO coming up.
Yep, we will be broadcasting live. That’s not true. We’ll be recording live from MAVO 2018, November 9th, 10th, and 11th.
And I will be joined this time by special guest Ken Foster, because Sean’s ditching me again.
Sean, what a flake.
Hey, I told him no from the get-go.
We’re happy to have Ken. He’s a good friend of the show. He’s done our VO Meter stick before, and I’m sure he’ll fill in nicely the large shoes of Sean Daeley.
He’s already interviewing replacements, guys. We’ve got to do something. Just please, just like hashtag keep Sean or something.
Keep me alive, man. Keep the lights on.
So with that, we’ll sign off. Chris, thanks for joining us on this part of the show.
Always a pleasure.
Yeah, thank you so much, Chris. It was great to have you both as a correspondent and on the show.
It’s always an honor to be here. Love it, guys.
Thank you, sir. We’ll hope to have you back soon. Thank you again, Chris, for being with us.
Why don’t you take it out for this episode?
All right. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of all ages, thanks again. Stay close to your dreams and take care.
Thanks for listening to The VO Meter. Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.
Thank you.

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. Hi, everybody, and welcome to a very special episode of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Today we’re in between episodes, but we’re doing this special report about the interview I just did with the two local authors who I recorded in my studio doing their own book.
Yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard Paul mention on some of our earlier episodes that he’ll actually rent out his studio and record local authors to do their audio book projects and stuff like that, which I think is a really cool added value for having a personal studio. So it’s not something that all of us can do if we’re working out of a closet or have roommates and stuff like that. So that’s really cool, Paul.
Yeah, something I sort of walked into by accident. I had a friend, the first one was a friend of a friend who had written a book and they were talking about it on Facebook. And just sort of the Looney Tunes thought bubble over my head said, hey, I wonder if they’d like to do an audiobook.
So I asked and she said yes. And then we worked on it over the next couple of weeks. At first I approached her and said, do you want me to do your book?
And she said, well, it’s a book about working moms.
You know all about that though, don’t you? Your wife’s a working mom.
Yeah, my mom was a working mom most of my life. But anyway, I said, good point. Would you like to do it yourself?
And she said, yeah, I’ve actually been thinking about that. Tell me how it works. So we talked about the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts.
I sent her Sean Pratt’s video of talking to herself in the bathroom for two weeks to see if she actually liked doing it. And she said she tried it. And she said, yeah, let’s do it.
So we produced a book, put it out on Audible, and it’s been out for I guess about six or seven months now. So that was fun. And I said, hey, this is cool.
I like being on the other side of the glass for a change and just doing the editing and listening. So my local pastor, who we’ll talk to in a second, you’ll hear the interview I did, and his associate had written a book that was wildly successful. And I approached them about doing an audiobook about a year ago.
And they sort of said, yeah, we’re thinking about it. Maybe we’ll tell you when we have some time. And then they said, yeah, let’s do it over the summer.
We’ll make it our summer project, which you’ll hear in the interview. It was probably the worst time to do it, because it’s in the…
Oh, the heat.
Yeah, the East Coast and Baltimore and the humidity. They were locked up in this booth. And I tried to use the fan, but it was interfering with some of the recordings.
So that’s one of the things Pastor Michael actually mentions that that was the worst part about doing the audiobook. So you’ll hear that in the interview. But yeah, the book has been out now for a couple of weeks, and we’ve had good feedback from it.
And they actually have a whole series of books that I’m hoping to work with them on in the future.
That’s wonderful. Best of luck to both of you guys, or to all three of you, excuse me.
Thank you. Something you’ve considered at all? Have you ever rented out your studio or let somebody borrow it, either here or back when you were in Nagasaki?
Well, yeah, I did it all the time, actually. Well, mainly for what I do, like sort of the English e-learning modules that I do. I’ll have people…
And I’ve certainly advertised my studio to local talent, but just based on where I’m located, there’s not a whole lot of people who need it. But back when I was in Japan, if anyone had any audio recording needs, they had them like, oh yeah, sure, just come on by. And by the way, I need more narrators, so it was kind of a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your situation, which is what I’m sure you’re experiencing now.
You might have… Or you can trade your studio services for marketing services or any number of things, whatever you set your mind to, really.
Yeah, actually brings up a good point. I met with a local marketing strategist this week, a friend of mine, who I’ve known for 20 years, that’s also what he does. And we talked about that.
And he said he’s more or less doing only consulting now. And I said, well, how could we work something out where you help me with the strategic part of my business? And he said, well, let’s barter for it.
And he apparently volunteers with a local school at where his kids go and helps them with their production for their sports teams. So his son and some of their classmates produce videos for the football team, the soccer team. And they’re really good, actually, for high school kids.
Like awesome cross-phase and dissolves and epic soundtracks behind it. So they need some voice overs for that. And I said, yeah, I’d be happy to help.
You know, I have the studio here, just like you said. We can barter out the services and we’ll see what we can make happen. So that’s something I’m looking forward to, too.
And I’m sure that’d be a fun little field trip for some of the kids participating in that. Like, create your own professional voice over.
Yeah, exactly. We’ll figure out if I can bring a mobile setup to the school, because it’s not that far away. It’s basically the next town over.
So I could bring a mobile setup there to a class and set it up there. Or maybe bring them here. We’ll see how that works.
Maybe you can get our friend a deal involved and have them set up their own little professional studio with vocal booth to go blankets.
Well, yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking anyway. But maybe you’re right, get a deal out to bring his van out there and do it for his benefit as well. That’d be cool.
Maybe not a van, they might be skeptical, but…
You’ll see the nice man in the unmarked van on the corner. Yeah, perfect.
So once again, the reason we’re doing this episode is to play the interview I did with Pastor Michael White and Tom Corcoran of Church of the Nativity here in Lutherville, Maryland. And we’ll talk about the book, Rebuilt, how they liked doing the audiobook and what challenges there were. And you’ll hear me trying to convince them to do another one.
Thank All right, so we are here in the interview portion of The VO Meter with pastor Michael White and Tom Corcoran, who are the authors of Rebuilt, the audiobook that was just published on Audible, iTunes, any place you can pick up audio books. And we’re talking about the experience and how the book came together. So welcome, guys, how are you doing today?
Good, thanks for having us.
Thanks, Paul.
So as I said, we just produced the audio version of this book, but obviously there was a print version before. Can you tell us the background story? Because the two of you work for the Church of Nativity here in Lutherville, Maryland, or do we call it Timonium, Maryland?
Mostly official zip code.
We say Timonium because people know the Timonium Fairgrounds.
Okay, so Timonium, Maryland, the Church of Nativity. But how did you come about writing a book about your experiences here at the church?
Well, I think a little bit was kind of both of us were new to working in a church. So for many years, we thought there was just an easy template. I think a lot of people think about church work that it’s kind of really easy.
We meet people all the time that come in from the business world, work at a church, and expect it to be very easy. And we certainly expect it to be easy. But we came in and found it much more difficult than we thought.
And also that in the Catholic Church, at least, there was no, the playbook or the template that seemed to be the way you would run a church, which made us think it would be easy. It was broken and not working. So over about five or six years, we learned that, that this is not working, that we need to do something different.
And that really a lot of places didn’t understand what the business of the church was and that this temple was not working. And so after having gone through that experience, frustration, and then learning some things that did work and seeing a growth and change in the church, we wanted to just share that story and share what we learned and think it was something that other people were feeling, some of the same frustrations that we had had, and give that a voice. So that’s kind of how the book came about.
Did you want to add anything to that?
Well, I think that you had the instinct to want to put our experience down on paper, and I responded accordingly. I think that was the basic exercise.
One good thing about kind of our partnership in writing the book is that I love a blank page, but I’m terrible at editing. I am awful, I can’t, you know, and Michael’s really good at editing and writing and rewriting. I like to say I’m not really a writer.
I just have ideas. I think Michael’s more a writer than makes the book readable.
Yeah, I don’t have any ideas.
Did you edit it and proof it yourselves or did you hire someone third party to do that?
Well, eventually we identified a publisher and he appointed an editor.
So you ran it through several hands before it was actually published?
Sure.
But that was the big obstacle for people who are trying to write a book. It’s hard to do, and so you have to go through a lot of different no’s. We got no’s many times and sent out proposals and did all that.
You either get nothing back or just get no form letters back. We actually got very lucky. Kind of the way it got printed was that we went to a conference where there was a bunch of publishers and we just happened to run into one.
I don’t know if you wanted to add that story at all.
Yeah, we were desperately in search for a publisher and we were at this conference where there were a number of them. And we ran into one sort of by accident and hit it off and struck up a conversation that led to our association, our publishers Ave Maria at Notre Dame University.
And as far as the audience for the book, what was your initial thoughts about who would read the book? Who was it for, basically?
For anybody in a parish that cares about the work of a parish, then I think, again, the way I think we describe it in the beginning is who feel like things are not going well, that love the church, want to see the church grow, want to see it be successful but feel like it’s not, and maybe aren’t sure why that is or what’s the path forward. So it was for anybody in a parish that cared about the church and wanted to see it grow and succeed and was not satisfied with the status quo.
You’re talking about staff or actual parishioners as well?
Either staff or parishioners, yes. We thought it could have a wider reach beyond just church staff and it has. It’s sold about, we’ve told, about 100,000 copies, I think, of Rebuild, 140,000 among all the books that we’ve, the three books we’ve written.
Full disclosure, I’m a member of the parish here and have read the book, and I know from the community that it really was well received and it sort of became a rallying point for the parish. Have you found that other parishes have been able to duplicate that and use it as a rallying point for themselves?
Yeah, there’s still, there’s some parishes that are doing that now. It’s still actually, even though the book was printed or published about five years ago now, almost, it’s still kind of early. It takes time for people to read a book, put it into practice, but definitely we see, we’re seeing fruit in other parishes, and that’s very satisfying.
I think probably the most satisfying thing about writing a book is, and this we were told by our editor of the book, that you wrote and put into words what people were thinking, but no one either had the courage or had taken the time to voice. And that kind of reminds me, you know, CS. Lewis said he wanted to write the books that he’d wish someone else had written.
And I think it’s cool to say you’ve written a book that all these other people wish they had written, but you wrote it and put voice to that.
Well, I think you both did a great job of getting that voice across. Sometimes there’s a disconnect between your writing voice and your actual speaking voice. And one of the things I like so much about the book is that knowing you two, it is your speaking voice.
When I read it, I hear your voices in my head. And that brings us to why we did the audio book, or at least in my mind. So let’s talk about how that started.
I think you had some thoughts about it, but I approached you both about two years ago to actually get it off the ground and see if it’s something you wanted to do. Did you have thoughts of the audio book before we talked?
Yeah, absolutely.
No, not at all.
Go ahead and say it. Ed, you explain your no. I’ll explain my yes.
Well, I just didn’t… It didn’t occur to me that anybody would have any interest in it.
Yeah, I mean, we had… People had come to me a few times and said, you guys should do an audio book. And our publisher at the time had said, yeah, we don’t do it.
If you want to do it, go ahead. But they just said, it’s not something we’ve found. I think since then, they’ve actually…
Come back around.
Come back around.
Said, oh, we’d like to do an audio version.
Because they had to read Already Worked With You. Oops. Yeah.
But, you know, but yeah. So I mean, a few people had said, you know, I never read, but I will listen to audiobooks. So the idea was out there, but…
It just makes so much sense, too, because people spend so much time in the car, in commute, at least in our community here in North Baltimore. And they’ve got plenty of time to listen, not much time to read.
So what were some of the challenges involved with doing the audiobook? First of all, before we started, what did you think it was going to be like? And then once we got into it, was it that way, or was it completely different?
I thought that it would be easy. I thought that it would be a no effort kind of exercise. And I thought that it was extremely challenging.
It was exhausting, actually.
Yeah, that’s the reaction a lot of people have when they think about it. I’ve worked with a coach where he has lots of people come to him and say they want to be audiobook narrators, and he has this video, I think it might have sent it to you, actually, Tom, where it’s a test that he gives everybody. He says, go in your house, his name’s Sean Pratt.
We talked about him on the podcast. But he says, go in a small room in your house, maybe your bedroom or the corner of your kitchen or maybe even a bathroom, and sit down with a book and read it for three hours every day for two weeks.
Oh my gosh.
And tell me what you think after that if you still want to be an audiobook narrator. And he said, at least half the time, people come back and say, yeah, this was not what I thought it was going to be. There’s no way I could make a living out of that or do that long term.
And then there’s others that say, yeah, it’s something I really enjoyed and I want to do it. But, Michael, for you, that was the challenge, the actual sitting down and getting through it? Absolutely.
And I speak for a living. I preach. That’s what I do.
So I’m no stranger to the exercise of the spoken word. But this was a challenging at a whole different level that I hadn’t anticipated.
So, when we started, I said right away that I thought the two of you were doing really well because I’ve produced some other books for narrators and it can be a bit of a struggle. But both of you did a great job, I think, in the actual dictation and picking up on pickups when we had to stop the recording and go back. Did you find it that after a while you got better at it or was it something that you think you still struggle with if you had to do it again?
Well, it’s interesting, you told Michael that he did really well. I don’t think you said that to me, Paul, but you said I had to get rid of my Philly accent.
Well, I’m saying it now.
Professor who actually connected Father Michael and I together, still might have said, before you handed every paper in, you should read it out loud. And it’s amazing the differences. I still haven’t taken that advice yet, but read it out loud because it does change.
You just pick up things you don’t know otherwise. And we practice a message that we’re giving. Again, we say, speak it into life.
So I think the audio stuff teaches you, again, that great connection, that thought that comes from both of the written word and the spoken word, and how the connection between the two. It might be a better way to say that, but…
No, that’s perfect. So the big question is, now that you’ve done a full audiobook, nine hours worth, would you ever do it again?
Not in the summertime.
That was the other challenge. It was like 125 degrees in that booth, because we were doing it in…
We could do it here in July.
Yeah, this is a nice space. We’re inside the media room at the church. And yeah, it’s apportioned very nicely for VO.
We could do it here.
All right, next time. That’s what we’ll do.
Well, guys, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. It was fabulous to work with you.
I was really excited going into it, and I’m so excited the book is out there now. Let’s give the title one more time. And with the subtitle, it’s Rebuilt, Awaking the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, Making Church Matter.
There we go, all together now. Thanks again, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul.
So once again, that was the interview I did this week with Father Michael White and Tom Corcoran from Church of Nativity. The book is rebuilt, and I’m so proud of the work we did, and it was also a lot of fun.
Well, that’s so cool that you got to work with sort of non-narrators and educate them a little bit about the recording aspect of audiobooks. Did it kind of remind you of your own journey getting into audiobooks and some of the challenges involved with that?
Yeah, for sure. And especially since neither of them had been in a recording booth before, I definitely could remember the struggles of sitting still, worrying about the clothes. One of the first things I had to do was tell Tom to wear a different shirt because it was rubbing on the microphone because he’s a big dude and inside this booth it was making noise.
Just those struggles that you don’t think about when you’re either speaking publicly or you’re reading to yourself and you’re thinking about doing audiobooks. Sitting still and making sure you’re on mic are two things that are so important. And I get to see those challenges as we develop the production.
Oh, absolutely. I’m actually working with a new talent, helping her set up her studio space. And just little things like giving yourself room to move, but not moving too much, making sure you have a chair that doesn’t make noise, that your clothes don’t make noise, that your mouth is clean and not too clicky, that you drink enough water.
It’s really, it’s amazing how many things we get used to just because we’ve been doing this for a little while.
Yeah, even to actually having somebody in the room, in the studio, but not in the booth. So the whole time they were doing the book, both authors were here. So if Michael was in the, I get to call him Michael now, it’s pretty cool.
If Michael, Father White, was in the booth, Tom was sitting on my couch in the editing area and vice versa. And for the first week, Tom had this awful cough. And if you listen really closely, you can hear some of it in the dead space, in the room tone of the book.
I got most of it out, but they weren’t available at the end to redo those parts and I had to do some magic with them, with Rx.
Don’t tell ACX that.
Yeah. So I had to do some magic to get those out. But even to that, you don’t think about those things if you haven’t sat in the studio before, that even outside this, what’s supposedly a soundproof booth, this whisper room, a loud cough is gonna come through.
Yeah, they’re not panaceas.
No, definitely not.
So what else did you learn about recording these guys, or kind of validate your experience as a burgeoning audiobook narrator?
Well, one of the things I learned is that I have an ear for talent, because one of the things, one of the reasons I wanted to do this book is because the pastor, Michael White, is such a great speaker in person. He’s actually booked on tours for speaking and is invited to parishes all around the country and even the world to speak about this book they wrote. So I knew he’d be good.
And the first day he came out, I was like a kid in a candy store.
I said, this is so awesome.
I knew you’d be good at this.
I’m so proud.
And then Tom, of course…
Put your agency cap on there.
Yeah, and then Tom, of course, said, does that mean I’m not? And I said, eh.
You have potential, maybe?
Exactly. We’ll get there, is what I said. But yeah, Father White was just a natural.
And I said, you could be an audiobook narrator tomorrow. And so they have their own podcast, actually, where they promoted the book. And Tom told that story and he said, yeah, Paul said that Michael was great.
I wasn’t so good that if the church thing doesn’t work out, Michael could be a narrator full time. So that was a funny story.
Well, I remember some of our guests, Mark Cashman and some of the other coaches we worked with, often mentioned pastors transitioning into voiceover, either when they retire or before, just because they’re natural storytellers and public speakers. And there are definitely a lot of crossover skills involved with that. So I mean, that’s great that you got to experience that firsthand.
And it was with your very own pastor.
Yeah, I mentioned in the interview that we just heard that their speaking voice comes across really well in the book. And it’s something you mentioned to Mark Cashman that when he writes, you can hear his voice in his writing. And for the two authors, Tom and Michael, it was the same thing.
And it came across in the audio as well. They were really good at getting their speaking voice like they do when they’re doing the messages at church into the audio book. And that really shows.
Everyone has this idea of what a voiceover artist or an audio book narrator is supposed to sound like. And the truth is, it’s supposed to sound like you. Yeah, you’re supposed to be clear and convey a story well, but unless you’re actually doing character voices, you’re just supposed to be your true self and let all of your natural personality and charisma shine through on Mike.
So once again, it was a great time working with these two gentlemen. The book again is Rebuilt, Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, Making Church Matter by Michael White and Tom Corcoran. You can find it on Audible, go through Amazon or iTunes.
Go ahead and buy it now. I’d really appreciate it. I wanna thank Michael and Tom for being on the podcast.
I had a great time interviewing them at the church. And go buy the book.
Before we go, I just wanted to thank Paul for his great idea of bringing his guests in and to our studio audience. It’s just a great reminder of how to add, like have that added value to your voice over business is actually renting out your studio and making it available to other talent. I know a good friend of mine, a co-worker of mine for the Global Voice Acting Academy, David Tobak, he actually rented his studio out to some very successful voice actors, Katie Lee, and you might know this one, Townsend Coleman, the voice of the original Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, actually came to his studio to record because they needed that ISDN promo now.
And it was amazing. Yeah, it was really cool.
Townsend Coleman, keynote speaker at this year’s VO Atlanta, by the way.
Yes, bringing it all around. And so now when I meet him, I’m like, hey, you recorded with my friend. Can you sign my Michelangelo?
Cowabunga!
You’ve got an N.
I know, I know. You never know when those will come around. But by all intents and purposes, Townsend’s an awesome guy, and I’m sure he’ll be very friendly and sign whatever turtles you have when you see him.
Unless you’re maybe, unless it’s one of those backpacks and you want him to sign your back.
I guess you could say he was shell shocked. But anyways, that just about wraps up this mini-sode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Have a wonderful week, everybody. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello everybody, and welcome to Episode 29 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Today, we’re going to talk all about P2P, or Pay-to-Play sites, those places you can go to get jobs. Some people call them Online Casting sites. We’ll take you through some of the lesser known ones, some of the really well known ones.
But before we get to that, Sean, what’s been going on in your VO world?
Well, I just went to one of the coolest voice acting workshops that I’ve ever been to. So a little bit of backstory. I have wanted to work with Pat or Patrick Fraley for a number of years right now.
I grew up watching him on Saturday morning cartoons. He was Crang and Baxter Stockman from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was also on Brave Star, a filmation show about a space cowboy, which was actually pretty…
The animation and the subject matter at the time was actually quite deep for a kid show, I think. But anyways, I’ve wanted to work with him for a number of years. When I started training in Japan for my voiceover career while I was teaching, he offered a lot of online materials.
He was one of the first coaches to have these sort of home study courses that you could just purchase from his website. And he’s got everything from how to be a better audiobook narrator, on how to do various accents. He’s got this whole three-part curriculum on character voice acting for animation and video games.
And of course, like I said, audiobooks and now e-learning. So, cool thing about Pat is he actually grew up in Seattle, where I’m from. And so once or twice a year, he’ll actually come up here to do a workshop.
And I couldn’t really rationalize doing some of his other workshops, like the audiobook work or the character voice acting, because those aren’t my primary genres. But when I found out he was doing an e-learning one, and the tracks would actually be used for a bit of an e-learning demo, I was like, done and done, click, click. And it was everything I wanted it to be.
I mean, Pat is just such a generous spirit and such a wonderful storyteller and educator. It was just a joy to be working with him throughout the day. And it kind of confirmed some things that I knew I needed to work on, like just dialing down the intensity a lot when you’re doing e-learning work, because people want to be listening to their peers.
They don’t want there to be any emotional or authoritative distance between the narrator and the listener. And of course, he helped me fix some of my slash breathing techniques, like, that’s a slash breath, is when you get through a long line of text and you want to keep going. So you’re like, and then just enough air to get you going.
But that’s actually pretty poor breathing technique, and you really want to kind of bring it down and take advantage of, like, that oxygen will give you the energy and the focus to attack the next sentence with a lot more emotional intent and clarity, if you will. So thank you, Pat, for some of those incredible gems. I’ve been using them in some of the auditions that I got this week and some of my e-learning projects.
And not only am I much happier with my performances, but I’m also a lot less winded or tired after doing long form, because I’m not straining myself to sound how I think I’m supposed to sound. So, I mean, it was worth every penny, and I highly recommend his in-person and home study courses. So thank you so much, Pat.
Interesting. How big was the class?
He actually divided it into two weekends, because, excuse me, two days, because the demand was so high. But the first workshop had about 10 people, and then we lucked out, there was some crossover and cancellation, so we only had about six or seven on that second day. I was actually really concerned, because I was like, oh no, I waited too long, and I missed the initial day.
And then he was quick to inform me that they had added a second one. I was like, done.
Oh, cool. So really, really intimate setting, huh? A lot of face-to-face time.
Oh yeah, totally. Everyone only got about two reads, but we still got about a minute of material to use for our e-learning stuff. E-learning is an interesting beast in that it’s one of the few genres where you can have a self-made demo, but I was just like, how much better will mine be with that professional guided instruction?
And so that was kind of the mindset for that. And of course, I want to be better at my sort of bread and butter genre. So it was just, whenever you’re trying to decide the return on investment for certain training and things like that, it was pretty obvious to me.
So I’m very glad that I did it.
That’s awesome. Congratulations.
Thank you, sir.
Anything else you want to talk about?
Yeah, I mean, I could go on about that workshop for days, but I think you’ve heard enough from me. What about you, Paul? Almost called you Pat.
What about you, Paul?
Pat, Paul, if you want to call me Pat Fraley, I’ll take it, believe me. I have a few things going on. I had, let’s see, it’s been a few weeks since our last episode.
So a few things, actually. Since we last talked, I’ve had two audiobooks released, one for The Pseudonym, that’s the third book in that series. So I have one left.
So I have one left I actually embarked on just before we got on here, the fourth book in that series, the last one for this author. So that was something I actually never thought would happen to have an author contract me for a series, but this has been going on for almost a year now. This is my fourth book, and so happy to work with this author.
That’s fantastic. And the last book in the series for Find Away Voices about the history of the Balkans that I spoke about in the last episode, that’s been released too. So now the Balkan Network is released on Audible.
Please go download that one. And yeah, I would love to see some positive reviews on that one too. So far, the reviews on the first one are fantastic.
Four and a half stars. And I got one that said, actually put my name and said, Paul Stefano did a great job, five-star review. They actually wrote five-star reviews, so I couldn’t be prouder of that one.
That’s excellent, man. And actually, I did want to touch on something you mentioned, how you were surprised about to be working, or the relationship that you built with that one, or the author, in getting a whole series. So that was one of the cool things about the e-learning workshop was that, or Pat really encouraged us to network with each other, because basically, everyone kind of had shown their talent and skill at the workshop.
So we basically had our own private e-learning roster. So, for example, if we get a client who likes my voice, but we’re like, do you have anyone who could play like your parents, or like an older adult? I’m like, oh yeah, Paul Stefano and Lee Laird, or whatever.
And then, as I had mentioned before, I frequently cast e-learning narrators for one of my ELL clients. And so I’m always looking for new people. And so I was like, I got all your contact info, you’ll be hearing from me soon.
And so we talked about this in a lot of different genres, but it is important to network with other voice talent because sometimes you will prove yourself an asset to a potential client, even if they are not hiring you for your voice. So if there’s something that you know you wouldn’t be good for, but you can recommend someone, a client will remember you for being so helpful. So yeah, always try and make a good impression and keep people in mind for future projects.
Oh, definitely. I’ve talked about that in a lot of different episodes, how if you can be a resource, you’ll be a rock star yourself, even if you’re not doing the work yourself. Referring to somebody is the best sort of way to maintain a relationship.
Definitely, and it might take a while, but usually those ripples do come right back.
Yeah, exactly. So I was on vacation last week, and funny thing happened. I only brought minimal equipment with me.
I really planned not to work. I just kind of wanted to relax, do nothing. And then of course, two days in, my son gets a job.
Oh, no.
I had to make do, and I did bring one of the Producers Choice blankets from vocalbooth2go.com, and he and I basically sat under the blanket, like it was a tent, and rattled off these lines, so he could get his job done.
So you were the bass trap then?
Yeah, more or less. I think I helped with that. So we got it done, it’s an author client, and I mourned them.
Just, this is something you should probably do as a best practice. If you are in a situation where you’re not in your home studio and a client doesn’t necessarily know that, you should tell them. So I did.
I told the client, listen, we’re at the beach and this may not sound as good as the sample you heard. And they said, okay, that’s fine. So I set it off and they said, yeah, this sounds great.
So we got that one job done. So it’s Murphy’s Law. Even when you think you won’t need your stuff, you will.
Or if you’re having a dry spell, but the expression goes, all you have to do is book a hotel and you’ll immediately get an audition, right?
Exactly. Like I can’t tell you how many times, like if I bring the equipment, crickets, but if I don’t, I can’t get enough jobs, you know? It’s ridiculous.
Yeah, so at least we got that done and I was happy for my son to get that job done. Of course his brother and sister were jealous, but that’s neither here nor there.
You can turn them against each other. They’re like, just be better kids.
Yeah, exactly. Just suck less and then you can buy toys too. No, that would be terrible.
And the last thing I’ll mention just before I went on vacation is my demo for radio imaging that I did with the fabulous AJ. McKay was released. And I’m really happy with the way that turned out.
Responses have been great so far, both from peers and family. It’s the first one where my brother was actually impressed. Normally he’s like, meh, let me hear the next job you do.
I played this for him and he said, wow, that’s great. And then another friend said, yeah, and then another friend said, that actually sounds like it could be on the radio. And I said, good, cause that’s the idea.
And then finally, not to sound too pompous, but AJ, who some of you may know is good friends with Joe Cipriano. It’s a running joke that we have going on. He played it for Joe and Joe told him it was really good too.
So that warmed the cockles of my heart as we say. So really proud of that.
Yeah, that’s some high praise, both from AJ and Joe.
Yeah, I can’t thank AJ enough because it was so much fun to work on and I knew that he would produce a great product and he really came through. It’s the first time I was actually impressed myself. Normally I’ll hear myself and I’ll say, yeah, I hear some mouth flicks or, yeah, I should have done that line better.
This one actually blew me away. And AJ said that was what he was hoping for was to do one that actually blew you away.
That’s wonderful. And like I’ve enjoyed working with AJ a lot. He did a recent radio imaging workshop with the Seattle group that I practice with and just over Zoom.
You know AJ, he’s just like so lighthearted, but no nonsense. And like it’s really easy to feel comfortable around him and do some good reads.
Yeah, that’s some advice I would… It’s a big takeaway. And that I would give to people who are looking to do a demo, do it with somebody who you feel comfortable with.
And I knew this would be the case with AJ because he and I just get along great from all our time spent together at VO Atlanta. So I knew that would work. But it’s an important thing to know that you can actually have some sort of relationship and some sort of back and forth with a demo producer.
Don’t go with the best just because people say they’re the best because you may not actually jive with them. Make sure you have a discussion and some talks to make sure that it’s someone you can work with.
Exactly. And usually before you get, like before money changes hand or anything like that, there are ways to sort of test drive different coaches. And I highly recommend that because unless you’re restricted by budget and stuff like that, there is, I highly recommend working with a variety of coaches before settling with anyone.
Because like Paul said, even if they’re good, they might not gel with your learning style or your personality. So those are other things that you need to keep in mind.
Well, in lieu of a VO Meter Shtick this week, we’re actually going to play the two demos we talked about. So you can actually hear the differences between the styles and the different production techniques that were used in both. So let’s start with the imaging demo that AJ did for me.
And it’s a rock imaging demo. And we’ll play that now.
1067, The Eagle is sending you to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies. We’ll throw an airfare and hotel for two. This is your captain speaking.
Welcome aboard Eagle Airways.
You just get ready to party like a rock star with this year’s inductees. If it’s Classic Rock, it’s here. Yeah, we’ll definitely need more cowbell.
I gotta have more cowbell.
93.7, The Fox Rocks. From Paul Rodgers’ voice……to The Clash’s tough choice…
This is your home for Classic Rock.
Rock 101.1 on air, online, on your phone, and sometimes on your nerves. Jay and the Wake Up Crew. Classic Rock 92.9.
Made in Baltimore. Cloud all summer. And rock in the bay.
You play everything I want to hear. Locally owned, locally operated.
100.7, The Bay.
97X presents Summer Tip Number 327.
Don’t bother with the sunscreen. It’s far more likely that your poor lifestyle choices will cause your liver, lungs, and heart to deteriorate before your skin does. 97X.
WKBU New Orleans, home of the Saints.
You know!
At John Oshelon in the morning.
Shigella, did you know, causes diarrhea? One thing I like about this show, we try to learn something every day.
This is Classic Rock, Bayou 95.7.
That was really good, man. I stayed for, like, that was like a minute 30, maybe a minute 40. Listen to the whole thing.
That’s great.
Thanks, buddy. Yeah, it’s a little long. But AJ seemed to think that worked, and I’m not going to question his judgment.
Yeah, I mean, and your acting’s, like, your performance has improved. You really come into your own. It just sounds like, it just sounds like your website promo.
You’re, like, snarky, gritty, seriously, you know? Excellent work.
Thank you.
Now, up next, we’re going to show up my e-learning demo. Now, I admit, it’s probably not going to sound as interesting as Paul’s, just because since it is e-learning, the focus is not on the production aspects, on the music and the sound effects, but which are incredibly important for radio, obviously, because it’s completely audio medium. What I’m really happy about personally with the e-learning demo is just the improved performance and being able to engage with the listener and help, as Pat said, to be a teacher rather than a narrator and to teach them cool stuff.
So here’s my e-learning demo, courtesy of Pat Fraley. Sean Daeley. This video is for parents and grandparents, and for you, because you want your baby to thrive.
For a baby, touch is talk. Touch is the most developed sense a small baby has. Skin-to-skin contact is a powerful way to communicate with your baby before your baby can talk to you.
Give your baby the gift of feeling deeply connected to you. Make sure your child knows what positive touch is all about. Create a deep and lasting bond.
Years later, when your grown child gives you a big hug or confides in you, you’ll be glad that you gave them a special way of communicating with you. Welcome to the Morton Arboretum, home to more than 3,600 native trees, shrubs and plants. This virtual guide provides a snapshot of what to expect when you visit our Wheaton, Illinois location.
So first, let’s look at how to get the most from your virtual tour. See the five main tabs on the top of your screen. Of course, there’s Introduction, Trees, Shrubs, Plants, like I mentioned, and of course, Frequently Asked Questions.
The Introduction tab is highlighted because your tour automatically started here when you click the Enter button on the home page. So you use your mouse to click on a different key page. Each key page lists subcategories in its left pane.
Wow, that’s really good. I can really hear the difference between this and your previous narration demo. Definitely some of that fine tutelage from Pat rubbed off.
But yeah, so you can already see the very different requirements for sort of the intended audience.
So we’ll get to our main topic of the day in just a moment. But first, we want to thank our brand new sponsor. Well, not so new anymore.
It’s actually our second episode. But they’re still our very first sponsor for the VO Meter. We want to thank, once again, Joe Davis and voiceactorwebsites.com.
That’s right. Thank you so much, Joe. So say you’re like me and Paul and you’ve got some new demos or you’re in need of a website to put your shiny new demos on.
voiceactorwebsites.com is the place to go. And to tell you even more about them is our good friend Dan Leonard from VOBS.
As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don’t look right on mobile devices.
They’re not built for marketing and SEO. They’re expensive. You have limited or no control.
And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what’s the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com.
Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control.
No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voice over website going for as little as $700.
So if you want your Voice Actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn’t be a pain in the you-know-what.
So thank you so much, Dan, for that awesome promo. And thank you, Joe, and voiceactorwebsites.com for the incredible services that you offer and for helping us out with our own websites when we need it. We highly recommend these guys.
So definitely check them out if you need a website or want to update your website for you and your voice over business.
So now we got that bidness out of the way. Ha ha, just kidding. Let’s move on to our topic of the day, and that is pay-to-plays, or P2P, or Online Casting websites.
So we’re going to start off with something that’s a bit of a taboo in the voice over industry, and that’s Fiverr, or fiverr.com. And we want to talk about why. So in case you’re not familiar with the platform, this isn’t just a voice over casting site, but it’s a freelance casting site for a variety of skills and products that people can do individually and just set up a profile and the basically…
This isn’t always the case, but you can basically do a voice over for $5. $4 if you talk about the cut that Fiverr takes for each job. So obviously, that’s not very much money.
And you can… A lot of voice talent are a little bit more business savvy and they will add additional services to it until it gets close to what might be a more acceptable rate, but still, the issue with it here is that it really gives clients the wrong idea on what a voice over can and should cost. And some people have argued whether or not this is really affecting the industry, and I think it is.
Granted, it does match low cost clients with low cost talent, because there are certain clients that like, this is our budget and we can’t or won’t go above it. And that’s fine. That’s not the issue.
What the issue is, is when you have a pro talent who is undercutting themselves and the industry as a whole by accepting working for lower rates, rates that are substandard. And so, or another part of this is, is that since there is really no barrier to entry, people will join Fiverr as an opportunity to learn while you earn and to build experience and build clientele that way. So, depending on what your ultimate goal is, like if you’re just trying to do this as a hobby or as a side income or as beer money is the common joke, then it might be okay for you.
But if you’re trying to look at this as a professional lifelong full time career, then you’re really making a bad impression because a lot of talent and a lot of people who hire talent do not look favorably at Fiverr.
Yeah, and that’s really where we are today, is that it has become a stigma for some people. And I can’t verify this at all, but there have been stories of people who say that agencies had dumped them or had dumped the talent they knew because they were on Fiverr, or an agent had seen a potential submission of someone who was on Fiverr, and they were essentially blacklisted from ever being added to that agency roster. I can’t verify that that’s true, but there is certainly a stigma out there for people who want to be considered professional voiceover actors or voiceover talent and still maintain a profile on Fiverr.
And it’s difficult. We’re just trying to give you guys a understanding of what the controversy is, so you can make that decision for yourself. There’s another famous article by a friend of the podcast named Stephen J.
Cohen, who’s a talent and audiobook publisher. He sort of documented the situation where voice casters will use Fiverr talent for, say, scratch tracks, tracks that aren’t ultimately going to air and are usually just to pitch an idea. So they want to save money on the scratch track, but they will make a note of who that talent was and blacklist them for any serious projects.
And so we don’t want anyone to shoot themselves in the foot by doing this service that they think is trying to ultimately help their business or to serve as sort of a stepping off point for them to sort of go into more professional waters, as it were.
Right, exactly. So moving on from Fiverr, there are other self-service, let’s say, casting sites out there where you create a profile. Again, there’s no barrier to entry.
Anyone can join. Sometimes there isn’t even a fee. Sometimes there is.
Some of those that I’ve looked at or some that I’ve actually been involved with are Voice Jungle, Voice Crew, Voice Hunter, Internet Jock, let’s see, voices.us, voicesdirect.com, and let’s see, that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. In all these cases, again, you can sign up for a profile. There may or may not be somebody vetting the talent to get in.
Some claim they do, some claim they don’t. And what often happens is they’ll post auditions directly to you, and maybe a few a day, maybe a few a week, and you’ll submit a read to this client, and then may hear back, may not. I’ve had some success with a few of those, but more often than not, the audition goes into an abyss, and I have no idea what’s happening, whether it’s been listened to, whether it was a real client to begin with, whether it’s someone who’s ever going to hire me again.
So that’s really the issue I have with some of those, is that they’re very nebulous in the business practices. I have no idea who runs the site, and I don’t really ever talk to anybody. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I don’t.
Not on jobs that I’ve done, but sometimes I have a job, sometimes I don’t. And it’s just another way to have your name out there. Do you have any experience with any of those, Sean?
Well, only what I’ve heard from you and some of our Meetup group. And personally, I was not satisfied with some of the stories that I was hearing with the amount of goal-digging you had to do to find decent jobs and this uphill battle that you have trying to get reasonable rates for yourselves. But if any positive stories you have, I’d love to hear more of.
Yeah, several of those actually have set rates. VoiceCrew is one, and Internet Jock is one, where it’s a set $50 rate, and that’s it. For whatever the job is.
Now, there aren’t any long-form jobs on there. They’re all quick hit, 30-second ads, 15-second tags. But the max and the minimum is $50.
So that’s something to keep in mind if you’re looking at some of these sites. Now, funny story about Internet Jock is I’ve actually been rejected from them for whatever reason. So it’s one I applied to, and was told I didn’t meet the standards for whatever reason, even though it doesn’t seem any different from several of the others where I was accepted.
So apparently I do have some sort of betting.
It’s like you’re saying before, it’s so ambiguous. You have no idea. You don’t know what their standards are, or if they’re just like some arbitrary reason why they don’t want to hire you.
Yeah. Do you want to talk about The Bunny?
Oh, The Bunny, yes. So here you have this, and it’s such an interesting thing because, so you might be familiar with Voice Bunny. It’s a subsidiary of Voice 123, which is probably the second largest online casting site available today.
Well, the parent company for both is Toray, by the way.
Oh, yes, yes.
And it’s Alex Toraynego is the owner.
Exactly. And so a lot of people actually like Voice 123. It is one of the more reputable sites that has been receptive to feedback over the years.
There are still some things that people don’t like about, namely their smart cast algorithm for how they cast auditions. And on paper, it’s not a bad idea because their goal is to simply discourage talent from trying out from everything under the sun and really being more selective with things that fit their voice and their ideal niches. And that’s good business practice, I think, for voice talent because you shouldn’t try to feel like a jack of all trades.
You’ll have much better traction if you specify in fewer areas but are amazingly good at that. But anyways, they also have this very…
Very different site.
Very different site called Voice Bunny, which again, they do vet you for that one, right? They have to listen to your audio quality, they need to know about your experience.
Yeah, I’ve actually been kicked out of Voice Bunny, ironically enough.
That’s so weird. And the way they do it is that they have these auctions for jobs, and you basically have to be on call 24-7 to really take advantage of these. And you can name your own price for most of these things, but it really encourages underbidding because of course the client is gonna go for quality at a lower price if it’s available.
So a lot of people complain about the sort of competitive like shark tank atmosphere of that. And of course, another unfortunate correlation that you find is very often clients who aren’t willing to pay much tend to be difficult to work with for some reason. I don’t know why this happens.
They might make unreasonable or unfair demands of you, just the amount of work that they’re asking for the price that they quote. And I’ve heard talent reduced to tears from some of the client or customer experiences they’ve had from that site. So that was another one that I personally steered clear from.
One thing I will defend about the money, and I’ve done it in the past, I think I mentioned on the show, is that they actually pay you for auditions. So it’s minimal money. It might be $8, it might be $20, but for every audition you do, they will pay you.
So there had been times where I would do 100 auditions in a month, and do pretty well monetarily. So in that respect, it wasn’t the worst of the sites. I did respect that.
But like I said, I was kicked out for poor audio quality, and that’s a whole different story where…
That’s bizarre. And a lot of people complain about that. And it’s almost like if there’s an issue with their uploading software or something, because people who normally have fine audio quality and decent studio setups are constantly being rejected.
Yeah, something was off about that. I mean, you’ll hear… You’ve heard my demos.
The one I just played was recorded right here on the microphone in the studio, the same one I used for the sample at Voice Bunny. And for some reason… This was after I was a member for quite a while, by the way.
I sent one audition, and their quality control people said, something’s wrong with this, you need to fix it. And when I sent it back again, again, they still rejected it and said, okay, well, until you fix your studio quality, you can’t participate anymore. So that was out.
Yeah, how do you defend against that? I don’t know. But if you want to learn more about Voice Bunny, I believe Doug Turkell, the un-nouncer, and Joe J.
Thomas, who’s got a voice actor blog as well, have written extensively about Voice 123 and Voice Bunny, even adding some interesting pictographics about some of their practices. So I highly recommend that. And then, who should we talk about next?
Well, let’s talk about the freelance site, as I call them. There’s one actually called freelancer.com. There is one called People Per Hour.
There is Upwork, which is a combination of what used to be two companies called Elance and ODesk. And now that company together is called Upwork. Gotcha.
And then there is guru.com. Those are four that I’m pretty intimately familiar with. I’ve been a member of all of them at some point or another.
Upwork, I was a member for about a year. And what you described about the clients wanting the most and paying the less is basically the norm there, at least in my experience, where I had clients asking me for a thousand word pieces, e-learning pieces for 25, 35, $50. And I was constantly arguing about rates, trying to raise the rates.
And ultimately, what ended my relationship there was that very issue. There was a job where the client, I was arguing rates basically with the client and asking for a payment on a session that was already done. And the client was refusing to pay.
And there was a sort of a grievance file with the client against me. And I said, all right, I’m gonna wash my hands of this. Just keep the money, I don’t care anymore.
It was like $50 that I was arguing over. I said, I’m just gonna cancel my account. Thanks for the memories, so to speak.
I was gone from there.
Thanks for all the fish.
Yeah, I did have some success there. Probably made several thousand dollars over one year. So it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
And some of the clients were good. But again, there were some issues with over demanding clients, is how I’ll put it. People per hour is one that has been very good to me.
It’s where I found some of my most high-profile clients. And that is based out of Greece, I believe. It’s definitely in the EU, and I think it’s Greece.
So the only issue there is a lot of jobs come in early and are looking for European voices, especially lately. It’s probably got something to do with our current government climate. But there’s not a lot of demand for American voices.
So that’s the only issue there. I may get one job a month there. But it has been good to me, and I have had some very high-profile clients from there.
And there’s freelancer.com, which out of all of those has probably been the best to me. I’ve had the most clients from there and definitely made the most money. They actually did a profile piece on me a couple of months ago about American success story for their front page of their website.
Cool.
And they gave me a free T-shirt to go with it. So what I want to mention about all of these is that they all work the same way. There’s no fee for having a membership.
You create a profile similar to Fiverr, actually, but they will take a larger cut of each job, a percentage. So I don’t remember the exact numbers for all of them, but all of them work the same way. They take a percentage of the fees for the job.
So you don’t pay anything upfront, but you will lose some of the fees in the backend. But those three specifically, People Per Hour, I’m sorry, those two specifically, People Per Hour and Freelancer have some really nice clients, legitimate companies you’ve heard of, universities I’ve worked with on there. So those have been good to me by and large.
And then the last one I mentioned is guru.com. That one is similar. And I’ve been on there for three years, never had a single job.
Oh, wow.
Nothing against them. They just have very few and far between voice jobs. All three of these sites have jobs for any type of work where it could be, they’re all usually clerical work, like you’re not gonna find a job steam fitting, but there’s writing jobs, proofreading jobs.
Transcription, stuff like that.
Transcription.
Oh, coding?
Coding, yeah, coding, web design, and instructional design, a lot of those. And then animators too. So one of my videos on my website actually hired somebody on Freelancer to do the whiteboard drawing, and then I did the voice to create that video.
So yeah, all three of those have been okay at one point or another, and I’m still with Freelancer and People Per Hour.
Cool. That was a world that I wasn’t too familiar with. So thank you for sharing your expertise on that.
And that’s another… I mean, you could even lump… Like, I’ve heard of people going to Craigslist and eBay for similar jobs, like that same kind of goal.
eBay, really?
Well, maybe not… Sorry, Craigslist, and there’s one other one that I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Mandy?
Probably Mandy, yes. Mandy’s a little bit more specific to entertainment production kind of stuff, so it’s more like videographers, cameramen, actors, voice actors, that kind of thing. So it is a little bit more specified to what we do, but in the same vein, it went from being a free service to a paid one, and the voiceover jobs specifically are still fewer and far between than some of the other team jobs you can be doing.
Yeah, I have a profile on Mandy, and the only offers I’ve ever gotten are for live announcing.
Oh, well, that can be fun, but maybe not what you want to do.
Yeah, some of them are pretty cool, but they’re always in the middle of the day, and they’re always in Washington, DC. There’s nothing ever in Baltimore.
That’s another thing. Like I said, it’s a lot of its location work. You actually have to be in where the project is.
Exactly. Have you ever had any luck on Craigslist?
I haven’t. I heard the occasional story. Usually indie game developers trying to cast voices or they need a scratch track, stuff like that.
Yeah. I’ve had a few auditions, but I never had a job. But my kids have.
I actually had two jobs for the kids off of Craigslist. So maybe that’s where all the jobs are for kids.
But one thing that I like, whether or not you choose any of these sites for your business model, just look at the number of baskets you can have for your voice over business, the amount of opportunities. And that’s not even through direct marketing. Like there are definitely options.
And I would encourage you to think about the various ways how can you reach out to companies, whether it would be through an agent, through a mediary like an online casting site or a freelance site, or through direct marketing to clients in production houses and businesses individually. So there’s lots of options and you should never have just one or two baskets to put your VO eggs in, as it were. All right, so now we move into sort of the upper tier.
Ironically, these are some of the ones that you might be most familiar with just because of their marketing SEO and their larger budgets. But you have sort of the top four online casting sites that we’re gonna talk about right now. You have voices.com, or what many of our compatriots like to refer to as voices.com, which we can talk to ad infinitum.
Voice123, which we mentioned before, and then Voice Realm, which is out of the UK, I believe, and then Bodogo, so the owner of which we’re gonna be talking with in a few minutes.
I hate Bodogo, god, this guy’s a jerk.
I hate Bodogo, we just wanted to bash Armin for the next 45 minutes. He doesn’t know what’s coming.
Just kidding.
Yeah, no, we got nothing but love for Bodogo. But starting with voices.com, it’s a company out of Canada, and a lot of voice talent have had very unsatisfactory experiences with them, and they’re concerned about a lot of things. Their entrance fee has increased over the years from about $200 to $400, and a lot of people are concerned that there is no vetting process, that people who are willing to pay that much, they are just allowed on the website.
And if you listen to the demos on the profiles there, you will certainly find some subpar demos, both acting quality and audio quality-wise.
You also find a lot and lots of people. That latest claim, voices.com is claiming 500,000 members.
Wow, that’s even, I was going to say tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of competition. Granted, not everyone’s going to be great and not everyone’s going to have a similar vocal type to you, but that’s a lot. And that’s why you see some talent discouraging people away from online casting sites, is because there is so much available talent there.
And it’s only going to take a couple seconds for an agent or a caster to click next and to find someone else. There have been a number of issues with just the amount of money that Voices takes from each job. For example, they charge an additional escrow fee to make sure that you’re paid is what their logic is.
So they’re taking an additional fee in addition to the entrance fee to their website. So we don’t want to go into too much detail there, but if you do a search, you can find lots of stories and lots of reasons why you might want to be wary of Voices.
Now, I will say I did have… I wasn’t a member there for quite a while and had a lot of auditions, but I never got a single job. So about a year and a half of membership, never a single job.
Now, I don’t know if that says more about my talent or the competition, but it wasn’t a good fit for me.
Yeah, yeah. And ironically, this is… a lot of newer talent will look at an online casting site as a way to get a foot in the door, as a way to get access to real scripts from real clients.
There’s some validity in that.
Oh, absolutely. But the funny thing is, is it’s like, if you’re not at… if your skill level is not competitive, you’re wasting your money.
So, like, you have to be conscious of where you’re at and if you can actually make money off of these sites, because if you’re completely fresh or if you have no innate skill and don’t know… like, don’t have all the proper equipment, you won’t make your money back.
Yeah, that’s true. So let’s move on to Voice Realm. Voice Realm is similar in that they charge a fee, a membership fee.
It is a little bit cheaper than voices.com. And you can get on there with tens of thousands of your famous friends or favorite friends. And it’s a similar situation where you’ll see jobs and you’ll be able to audition, but you may not know how many other people are auditioning with you.
And it’s going to be a huge competition pool just like voices.com. So the only issue with Voice Realm that I had was their social media presence, where they spout off all the time about voiceover topics in a snarky and sometimes crude way. So I ultimately canceled my membership with them for that reason because they seem to be baiting other voice talent on Twitter and flat out making fun of them, which I was not a fan of.
Especially since we’re supposed to be, like, we are their commodity, you know? They are selling voice talent. And yet it’s very, it seems very apparent that they don’t respect talent very much.
And like you’re saying, it’s sound, it’s trolling, it’s bullying. They’ve had a number of upsetting social media campaigns where, like, everything from voice actors have more sex to pictures of butts and abs and whatever. And I’m like, one, what the hell does this have to do with voiceover?
Two, a lot of people are offended because they have underage talent on the site. They have minors on the site. And here you’re pandering sex and drugs with your voice actors?
That’s very unethical and wrong to me. I never had any, like, directly negative experiences with Voice Roam, and I actually liked a lot of the jobs that were coming in.
Yeah, I had some jobs there and had some success.
But I could not stand that kind of treatment of my peers. And some good friends came to me with just the way that they were treated. And I couldn’t stand for it, so I left as well.
Now, there is one more thing about Voice Roam to be aware of. They have a sister site called cheapvoicetalent.com.
Oh, yes.
And it’s worth mentioning that if you’re a premium member or above a Voice Roam, they automatically add you to cheapvoicetalent.com.
Yeah, and a number of talent have complained and left the site because of that, because they don’t want to be associated with cheapness. They are not cheap talents. And the fact that we have no control over that made a lot of talent upset.
So you can actually find out more about that via Mark Scott, a Canadian Voice Talents blog. Just look for Protecting My Brand, Why I Deleted My Voice Roam Account, over at Mark Scott Voice Over. So thank you, Mark, for detailing and archiving your experience so that other talent can learn and make a more informed decision.
And then we have one of our sort of the newest tier of these Online Casting Sites. We’re of course going to talk with Armin Hirstetter of Vidalgo, but now you have Kevin West with VO Planet, which is a newer site that just launched a week or two ago, actually.
Well, they’re newer in this form. They’ve been around for a while.
In this form, yes. I did want to talk about that. So VO Planet was another Online Casting Site with actually not the best reputation for a lot of talent about a decade or five to ten years ago.
It was just poorly managed under the management at the time. People didn’t get very many jobs, and when they did get a job, they didn’t have the best client experiences, and there was issues with payment. But anyways, a man named Kevin West actually decided to like, bought the site, and so it’s now under new management.
And over the last couple of weeks, he has been very receptive and very open to voice talent feedback in the features that they want in an online casting site. So honestly, I haven’t seen that kind of invitation for involvement from almost any of the other sites that we have just been talking about. So Kevin, really excited.
I wish you nothing but success in your new endeavor, and I hope that you and the talent that are a part of your site are just satisfied with the experience. And I believe Paul can give us first-hand experience because he signed up a few weeks ago.
Am I right? Yep, I remember. It’s been about three weeks, like you said.
I was there before the crash, unfortunately. Well, you know, it was probably a good thing in the end. The site crashed about a week after it relaunched.
But from what I understand, it was being run off the old code and they were going to redo it anyway. And as they were trying to upgrade it, the whole thing crashed and they had to build it from scratch. So probably in the long run that’s better because, as Armand will tell us actually later, having old code in a website is actually a bad thing.
So starting fresh is probably good for them. But anyway, I see several auditions a day. It’s been great so far.
Really good clients from what I can tell. I haven’t booked a job yet, but hopefully working towards it. But what I like about it is not every…
similar to Bedalgo, not every job will require a custom audition. What I found from my membership in all of these websites is, Bedalgo and, so far, VO Planet seem to have the highest percentage of people who will hire you off your demo. So they’ll put a job listing, and it will say, just send us your demo, and we’ll consider you off of that, which I like a lot because it saves a lot of time.
You don’t have to do a custom demo for everything. It’s the reason we pay thousands of dollars for professionally done demos anyway.
I was about to say, it’s a much more active and apparent return on investment instead of sending it to individual companies or agents. It’s great to have sites that are willing to accept this.
Right. So, so far, things look great. Like you said, I wish Kevin the best of luck as well.
Wonderful. And so, sort of to wrap up, the whole point of this episode was to kind of just let you know what the current online casting atmosphere was so you can make more informed choices for you and your voice over business. They’re not necessarily all evil or taboo as it were, but…
Or all good.
Or all good. Yeah, that’s a great point. But they might be a potential avenue for your voice over business.
So, like we said, we just wanted to give you as much information as possible, the experiences that we’ve had ourselves and have heard from our colleagues, and help you make the best decision for you and your business.
So with that, thanks for listening to this episode of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
So coming up in our next episode, we have our feature from Otacon. Chris Dottoli sitting in for Sean will be joining me in two weeks now, actually only ten days now, down in Washington, DC for the Otacon Japanese Anime Convention. We’ll do some live interviews with guests and voice actors, and maybe some ambient interviews, man on the street type of things, and then we’ll do a quick wrap up, and yeah, should be a lot of fun.
Wonderful. At the beginning of this episode, you guys heard how stoked I was to be working with the inevitable Pat Fraley. He has actually agreed to be on our show.
We’d actually love to hear from you guys, since he’s got such a wealth of experience in so many different genres. What kind of questions do you want to hear? So feel free to reach out to us, or just to send a comment on the vometer.com website, and we’ll be sure to ask any questions that you might be interested in.
So, that’s it for this episode of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Have a great week, and we’ll see you in a month. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO. Meter. Measuring your voice over progress.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. We’re doing things a little bit differently today because we had on our guest Armin Hierstetter from Bedalgo, and he gave us so much information that it actually went almost an hour in and of itself. So, we’re going to start with the interview, and then we’ll come back with our episode on pay-to-plays and some of our favorites.
Before we do that, I want to thank our sponsor, voiceactorwebsites.com, and to tell you a little bit more about it, here’s a word from fellow talent and VOBS host, Dan Leonard.
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So if you want your VoiceActor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn’t be a pain in the you-know-what.
So once again, we thank our sponsor, voiceactorwebsites.com. They’ve done my site. They are about to launch a site for the VO Meter.
Stay tuned for that. And we can’t thank them enough for being on board. So without further ado, let’s get to our interview with creator and founder of Vidalgo, Armin Hierstetter.
Hi, everyone, we are here in Bedalgo Call right now with the creator of Bedalgo Call. That’s right, we are talking with none other than Armin Hierstetter, the owner and creator of Bedalgo. He is also a voice actor and producer himself, and a recent recipient of the One Voice Arts Award for the best online voice job site.
So we are very, very happy to have with us Armin Hierstetter. How are you doing, Armin?
Hi, Jean, I’m doing really fine. Thanks for having me. A very nice introduction.
And may I add, I even got the other award as well for the best voice over services website service, which is actually Podalgo Call.
Wonderful, that’s amazing. And I should have mentioned this before, but everyone in the VO industry knows Armin as a true and metaphorical rock star. I mean, he’s just the amount of work that you do for the VO industry on an international level is incredible.
So we are very grateful to have you today.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Well, the awards are well-deserved. We have become de facto shills for the company. And we mention it in pretty much every episode.
And our fans know that we use Vidalgo Call for all of our interview segments, which we have with guests. So we’re really grateful and just so happy to have you here again. Welcome.
Yeah, and probably I have to excuse because I see you, well, the podcast listeners will not see that, but I can see in Vidalgo Call that you’re wearing headphones, you’re sitting in front of your nice microphone, and I’m just sitting in front of my laptop. So if my audio quality sucks a little bit, apologies, I will do better next time.
Oh no. Well, we’d love to have you back, but audio quality is not a requisite for this interview. So I’m sure you’ll make up for it with wonderful information.
I hope I do.
Exactly. So Armin, as we talked about, everyone knows you as the rock star who created Vidalgo, and Vidalgo Call. But how did you get started in the voiceover world in general?
What did you do before Vidalgo?
So before I did Vidalgo, I was working in publishing for almost two decades. After school, I became a junior writer for a computer magazine. And that was my first job.
And after like, I think nearly two years, no, two and a half, three years, I applied for a job with Penthouse magazine, like the Madden’s magazine, because I heard from a friend of mine that they were looking for a senior writer. And I was in the computer industry, everything changes so fast. So there’s always something new going on.
And I really, really liked that with writing for the computer magazine. But if you have written for computer magazines for three years in a row, well, yeah, everything changes, but it’s always computers. So I was thinking, could I go somewhere else?
And somebody told me, yeah, there’s this open position with Penthouse magazine. A senior writer just resigned there and they desperately need somebody. And I said, yeah, well, come on, guys.
I was like 23 at that time, or 24, 23 or 24. And I said, yeah, they will be just waiting for me. I mean, this is a top shelf magazine with hundreds of thousands of readers and I’m not really experienced.
But nevertheless, I applied for the job and I got it. So I was working for Penthouse magazine for two and a half years, two and a half, three years, becoming the youngest deputy editor in Germany at that time. When then a friend of mine called me and he was editing and developing a new magazine, a football magazine for kids.
And he asked me if I would be interested in doing that. And although I’m a football fan, I support Bayern Munich, the German team, you might know. And football was not really the topic I’d rammed off, but it was a weekly magazine.
And coming from a monthly magazine to a weekly magazine, that meant like, this is the premier league of magazines. It can’t get any more exciting than that, with all the pressure of deadlines, and you have to have the magazine out every week, and it’s really, everything is working on tight deadlines. So I thought that would be really cool.
So I did that. Then I did another teen magazine called Sugar in Germany. And I worked for the company quite a long time.
But then in 2008, like at the top of the financial crisis, I was the publishing director of FHM Magazine, which is also a man’s magazine.
I remember that one well.
A real man’s man, Armin.
I was a subscriber. So, sorry, my funds didn’t keep your job.
And so, and I was the publishing director, and the sales were going down, like the magazine sales were going down, and also the advertising sales were going down, none of which I could stop. So they said, well, Armin is not worth his money, so we get rid of him. And that happened on the 17th of March.
And fortunately, just half a year earlier, I had the idea of creating a website for voice over talents. And this came along that way. I think it was in 2004 when a colleague, again a colleague, I think I live off all the ideas of colleagues.
A colleague told me in 2004, he was then overseeing FHM magazine, and he asked me, Armin, we need to do a new voice over for a commercial that is upcoming for our edition of FHM. And how can we do that? And I said, well, you compliment me all the time on my voice, let’s try me to do that.
And he said, well… And I said, come on, what do you have to lose? We go to the studio, we record.
If it doesn’t work, well, you lost nothing, and I don’t charge anything because I, well, the company owns me, so the company owns my voice too. So it’ll be fun. So we did that, and I went to this recording studio and the director there, I told him right in the face, listen, I’m not a professional voice actor, but I think I can knock it out like a 30 second spot.
I think that that should be fine. And driving in the car, in my car to the studio, I was always saying to myself, FHM men are like that. All the time, it’s the claim.
FHM men are like that. FHM men are like that. And I did that all the time, all the time to get in the mood and looking for, well, what would work.
So I did my stuff there, and then the director said, okay, yeah, I can hear you, you’re not professionally trained, but I think if you follow my directions, we have this thing recorded in no time. And 10 minutes later or 50 minutes later, he said, I think we got it. And so I was happy, and I thought, Armin, you now are a voice over talent.
Thank you for the laughter, because this shows exactly how naive I was. So basically what happened then is I thought I’m a voice over actor. So I grabbed a CD with my only demo I had, this commercial, and I wrote to all the German voice over agencies I could find.
And now guess what happened?
And lots of rejection.
No, I heard nothing. They didn’t even bother to reject me. They just kept silent.
And I was like, okay, that didn’t work really, did it? And I was looking then online for opportunities. I had no clue about voice over websites whatsoever.
I hadn’t got a clue about voice over whatsoever. So, but I found a website that offered the possibility to sign up with them to pay money, and they would then send jobs to you. But all those websites have been targeted to the English speaking markets, basically.
So I was trying to find a German website that does the same, and I could not find any. And I thought, well, that’s odd. Wouldn’t it be great to have a German website of that as well?
Now remember, this was 2004, when I myself had my first voice over. I signed up with this English speaking website, and I got my first jobs there. And I wish I would have still a recording for my first voice overs, because they must have sounded, oh God, I think I would cringe so much.
You’d be amazing how often we hear that. And I feel the exact same way too, because like you said, people who just get in, they have no idea what a VO should sound like. And the funny thing is, is it’s just supposed to sound like you.
But I mean, you can totally sympathize. It’s hilarious.
Yeah, but it was not only like my lack of how to give a decent read, but also like the technical quality of the audio. Well, I did music recording for a few years. I had my MIDI piano, I had a Roland hard disk recorded, and I had recording gear, and I had that.
I had a decent microphone. That was all of the problem, but I did not have a voice booth. So what I did was I was in my living room.
I had this, I don’t know if you know it from, I think it’s, is it SC Electronics that has this shield?
The reflection filter, yeah.
Yeah, exactly, the reflection filter, and I had that. And well, if you only have that, everybody knows it does not work. You have the room reverberation from all the sides, especially from the ceiling.
So it must have sounded horrible.
Still, the sound magicians at Mitro AV Online, a New York recording studio, they booked regularly with me because they did trillions of e-learnings, and they did it multi-language, so they always needed a German version as well. And I worked together with them, I think, at least for five, six years, at least, probably longer. And so this is where I started doing voiceover myself.
Of course, then I got professional training with a teacher that is working at the theater and educating actors, so I learned a lot from her. But still, all the time, I had this spark in my head. No, not this spark, this thing in my head that says, but Armin, why isn’t there a German version of the website that you get the jobs from?
Because there were not many German jobs, only just a few. So I was thinking about that for three, four years until there came the time, and I don’t know if you know that, but in Munich, Germany, there is the Beer Fest, the Oktoberfest. Yes, we’ve heard of it.
It’s the biggest festival of its kind worldwide, and with all the beer tents and the Umf-Data music and so on, and a lot of Gemütlichkeit, as we call it. So I was sitting there with some friends. I had probably a few masses of beer.
A mass is like one liter of beer in a big mug. And I had a few masses of beer, and I was thinking, and this idea came back again in my head, like nobody’s doing that. I mean, if nobody’s doing it, you probably have to do it yourself.
So half-hammered, I walked home, started up my computer, and coded the very, very first lines of Boudalgo. I hadn’t coded for 20 years at that time, but there was a, or there still is, a programming language, probably 80% of all the websites out there are coded in, it’s called PHP. And this language is very similar to a language I already knew, which is called C, so for all the computer aficionados out there.
And I wanted to find out, Armin, do you still have what it needs to code this website? And I soon found out that, yes, okay, I think from programming, there shouldn’t be too many problems if I had known what would come after. I probably would have thrown in the towel a long, long time ago, because if you also have to do server administration and all of that stuff that I had no clue about whatsoever, it can be very, very frustrating, and it was very frustrating.
But nevertheless, after three months, it was really fast. There was a website, Functional. Let’s not talk about the looks anymore, because it looked horrible compared to modern standards, but it worked.
And then I had a website, and then I realized, okay, yeah, Armin, you have a website now, but you can’t approach clients to post jobs, because there ain’t no talents with your website, so you need to find talents. So what I then did is I looked up the biggest association of talents in Germany, wrote the president of them an email and said, listen, I created this website, and my plan would be if you would promote it with your 250 talents you have, like German talents, and they are all vetted talents, I would be willing to give them a premium membership for six months for free to have a critical mass of talents on board that would allow me to promote the whole service to clients. And surprisingly, the guy, although he was developing a similar website, well, or yeah, himself, at least he had a programmer that should have done, should have programmed the website for him, he never fulfilled his job.
He said, I like what you do and yeah, let’s give it a shot. And after one week, I had 70 voice over talents. I said, okay, now let’s promote it to clients.
And this is how it all started. Because in the beginning, the website was only in German.
Because at first, I regretted that I didn’t think it through completely right from the beginning. Because the website was coded that way, that all of the copy you could read on the website was hard coded into the website. So when I decided like, okay, I need to make this at least for the English market, I had to reprogram the whole website again with English copy in it.
And it was a complete and utter nightmare. And so, but I think it was in mid 2009, sorry, mid 2008 or end of 2008, when I had the English version of the website ready. And then I could also approach English speaking talents.
And well, then, of course, with English speaking talents, everybody who was able to read English could then join, well, provided they would be professional talents. So I had an international base of talents, attracting more clients too.
First off, let me just say that I love this sort of beginner’s mindset that you have. I mean, you mentioned before, if I knew what I was getting into, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But for better or worse, your own naivete kind of gave you the confidence to pursue it.
And as Paul was talking about earlier, we’ve already talked about some of the differences, like that really personal touch that you offer, that really hands on approach with Bedalgo. But I’d love to hear from your perspective, how Bedalgo is different from other online casting sites.
Well, there are a few things that I think differentiate Bedalgo from the others. Well, the first one, you just said it for yourself. It’s a very personal, direct, hands on approach.
Every mail I get, it’s me that answers the mail. Luckily, it’s not too many because that would take too much time. I coded the website that way that in theory, not many questions need to be asked because it’s so insanely easy to use.
So then a second point that is very crucial, right from the start, I said, okay, I can only have talents on the website that are professionally trained voice over talents. I don’t mind if somebody’s a real newbie, like he had his training and now wants to start, that is fine. But what I cannot have, I thought, was somebody that has no clue about voice over business at all, and just wants to give it a shot because he thinks an easy buck to make.
And I think by now I had probably, I don’t know, 40,000, 50,000 talents registering for Boudalgo, and only 7,500 made the cut. You get many talents where the demo, and I listen to all the demos of each talent that registers, and I approve or disapprove the profile then. Well, disapproved profiles just get deleted, and the other ones get approved.
And some of the demos, they sound like, shh, hello, shh, my name is Sean, shh, or Sean, shh, I am, this is my voice, I want to sell. Yeah, well, I don’t know what then comes after that, because by the time, well, I have deleted it a long time before. That’s the good thing about bad voice overs.
You instantly recognize them and can hit the delete button like after two seconds. So this is the, and I think it’s very important. And the reason why this selection has to be made is not because, is not that I’m a nasty guy that wants to criticize people.
No, it’s the fear that imagine somebody like that signs up, gets approved, puts out their credit card, and becomes a premium member. And then auditions for a job of a top shelf company. Well, what do you think?
Will the client think listening to demos like that? He will say, oh my God, where am I? I will never ever use this site.
They can’t be serious about what they’re doing. By the way, this is still what I just cannot get… where I cannot get my head around with other websites that do not vet talents.
I wonder what those clients think when they hear that and why they’re still using services that are, frankly, wasting their time. But that’s a different story. But that’s, again, one part where it completely differentiates from others.
And the third one is, I approve and disapprove every job that is posted. And if there’s somebody that wants to have a TV spot for 100 quid, well, it’s not happening. They are getting…
Well, first of all, the system semi-automatically scans for those things and will prevent the client from even posting that job. But if he does tricky things and says, okay, this is not a commercial, then this is, I don’t know, an audio book to get a different budget range, then I have… I look personally at every job posted, and if I see something that’s not adding up, then the client gets a mail from me where I say, okay, listen, this kind of job needs at least this kind of budget or it’s not gonna happen.
That’s great.
That’s wonderful. Yeah, we really appreciate that kind of quality control on both ends because some of the other… I mean, everyone is familiar with some of the controversies regarding some of the other online casting sites.
People wonder if there is an actual vetting process or if the business is more concerned by just making a profit through the volume of subscriptions they get through the talent versus matching quality talent with quality clients. So I can’t tell you how much Paul and I and the VO community at large appreciate the mindset and the approach that you’re taking with that. It’s wonderful, Armin.
Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Well, okay, I do that on the one hand because I’m a firm believer that there needs to be a certain level of quality to provide a great job, to make a great product.
On the other hand, I do that also because really I’m a true believer that it can’t possibly work otherwise because the whole thing would implode. And I’m still a gobsmacked when I listen to demos of people I see on other websites where I say, well, probably you’re not a premium member because you would alienate the clients big time and it would badly reflect on the website that you have registered with. So I’m really not sure what’s going on there, but well, maybe if…
Well, some websites, they invest so much money, thanks to Morgan Stanley, to promote their services, that they have so many clients that they simply don’t care and while you just have to browse those websites and the talents there, and listen to the demos, and some are really like… You want to have the earth below your feet opened and swallow you.
So Armin, we talked about the ways you verify talent coming in, a new talent that signs up for a membership. What do you do or is there anything you do to maintain quality for talent that are already on the roster?
Well, if somebody made the cut, then it’s because of two things. First, the technical quality of the demo, or demos he provided, is broadcasting quality. The second, the reads he gave or she gave support the impression that this is a professionally trained talent.
And that’s that. So once that’s done, I believe that people will not have their talent level decreasing over time. So I do not revisit the profiles to ensure, are you still a good voice over talent?
I think that’s not necessary. What I do, though, is if I see… I can see all offers.
I can… because, well, I run the website, I see all the offers, all the auditions. So what I do from time to time is on a random basis, I flick through the demos, I listen to them, and if I see something that bothers me, could be technical quality, could be a music bed before the audition, things like that, then I shoot out a mail to the talent.
Doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. And also what happens is if somebody is aggressively undercutting, then they should be prepared to get a mail from me where I say, OK, listen.
I can’t force you to have a decent budget that you’re asking for because that’s your sole decision, and by law, I cannot force you to stick with prices. But I would recommend that you consider the following, and then comes a little bit of what is good for the market, what is bad for the market. In another way, I do blog postings, not very many, not even close to as many as other websites do, where I try to answer the most important…
where I address the most important issues that I feel talents might run into, no matter how experienced they are. And everybody can read that on the Bodago blog. You don’t need to be a premium member.
You don’t need to be a member at all, basically, to read those. And a few hundred times a year, I get questions asked by email, and then I direct the people just to the blog postings where I say, you need to read that, and that makes all of it completely clear to you.
Well, that’s great. I kind of knew the answer to that, because I think I shared on another episode of the show, I got one of those emails from you that said, hey, there’s a little bit of something in the background of your audition for this job. And I played it back, and you were right.
I had inadvertently copied a breath into my room tone that I pasted in every dead space of the audition. So it was like, today’s topic is about foot pain. And here’s how we’re going to address that.
And you were absolutely right to send that to me, and I appreciated the quality control.
And by the way, there is also what I call fast feedback that clients get, because the issue is always, you have like dozens and dozens of talents that audition for a job. Now, most of them have not received any feedback. Of course, the winning talent will receive a feedback, a very positive one, but all the others usually don’t get any feedback, because while you can’t blame the clients, it’s impossible to have a personal feedback sent to them, to all the guys that auditioned.
Some do, most don’t. So to have a little bit of feedback still, what I included like, I think, half a year, three quarters of a year ago, is next to every audition, there’s a drop down menu where people can give a fast feedback, and the fast feedback could be great voice. Unfortunately, it doesn’t suit this job.
Or just great voice, we like it, but that doesn’t say you get the job. But it could also say, I can hear room ambience, too much EQ, bad micing, things like that. And when people get, for example, if you get some over the quarter of, I don’t know, let’s say a few months to half a year, and you receive feedback that always says room ambience, well, then you definitely know something is wrong with your recording setup, because otherwise you wouldn’t get the feedback.
So this is awful. It’s only a tiny thing, and it’s not like that everybody uses it. But every little bit helps.
Any feedback helps all the time. And this is just another way. By the way, this works vice versa.
Also, the talents can… And I would suggest the talents should use it all the time. They can give a fast feedback to the client as well.
For example, if the script is badly translated, if the script is just plain bad, if the briefing is bad, and you can give that feedback as well. And if a client is constantly hammered with bad feedback, and it’s anonymous, they don’t know who gave the feedback. They just see 10 people said the description is weak.
And so this, of course, will then get the client to a point where they say, okay, next time I put a job up with Bodalgo, I spend 30 seconds more and explain a bit more what kind of voice I’m looking for. And of course, jobs that, or many jobs, that are really weak in the description, they get rejected by myself where I say, okay, this three-word briefing will not do the trick. You need to be more precise, and it’s for your own good, because the more precise your briefing is, the more relevant the auditions will be, and the better the job will be that you have at the end of the day.
So everybody wins, and for you it’s only like 30 seconds more time, but it saves you a lot of time down the road. So, yeah, these are like the major things where I try to constantly educate and improve the quality, and it’s really a long road, and it’s a long, hard fight, but time is playing for me. As long as there is Bodalga out there, it will educate the people.
I love that. And going back to what you said, all these little things to receive and give feedback between clients and talent, and it just goes back to your idea of quality control and trying to create quality voice overs for quality clients, and it’s amazing. You just don’t see that anywhere else.
Yeah, and I would not be angry at all if other websites would take this idea on board in there, because if everybody does that, that would help the whole industry so much. It’s like, for example, David Rosenthal. I have the…
And you’re with GVAA, too, Jean, aren’t you?
Yes, yes. I’m their social media manager and membership liaison. I head up their membership program.
And with the English-speaking clients, there is a link within the job posting right under the field where the budget goes that says, unsure about the budget? Check out this rate card.
I included that quite, quite some time ago. And these are also… Okay, of course, this rate card information is massive.
Probably not everybody is reading through this. But it’s there. And maybe they don’t do it for the first job or the second job or the third, but they see it all the time there when they’re posting jobs, and maybe somebody clicks on it.
And everybody that clicks on it is a good thing. And the information is there, and if it’s there long enough, it will trickle down.
Wonderful. Plant in the seed.
Yes.
Thank you so much, Armin. You’ve told us a little bit of the progression and evolution of Bodago. What do you see on the horizon?
What is the future for Bodago?
Well, the future for Bodago is the past of Bodago. The goal is the same, attracting more clients. I don’t know if you’re aware about that, but since the beginning of Bodago, Bodago has not made any marketing efforts towards talents.
I never did that and probably never will do. There’s only one exception, and these are my appearances at voice over conferences. Where I go to Atlanta, or I go to Gravy for the Brain, the Voice Awards.
The One Voice.
The One Voice. Thank you, Paul. And this is the only marketing effort I do to the talents, and I might reduce that a little bit in future.
Well, first, it’s quite a financial impact if you sponsor those events. And don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore Gerald, what he does with the VO Atlanta. I think this guy is a wonderful person, first point.
And second, he’s an incredibly skilled entrepreneur. And I just love the passion and how he does that and how it looks like and how it developed. And that’s a really, really great asset, and it’s wonderful to be there.
Nevertheless, I attracted really very, very much attention on the voice talent side. And I don’t want to risk that there is a disbalance between the number of clients with Budalgo and the number of premium talents with Budalgo. Because if I run into a disbalance there, then nobody will be happy, because nobody will be getting any jobs, or not enough people, or the hit ratio will just suffer from that.
So I might reduce that a little bit. You will still see me there. But yes, I might reduce that.
And at the same time, enhance the efforts on attracting new clients. And there is an issue that… Somebody just posted that country call, who it was on Facebook, where he was talking about the SEM efforts of voices.com and other websites.
And I think Google AdWords, for example, because this would be the first place you go to. If you want to promote your business, your online business, Google AdWords had been a wonderful thing for quite a long time. But this changed for the voiceover world a few years ago already.
When I had ads out there with Google AdWords, a few years ago, the people that were clicking those ads were clients looking for a voiceover talent. So imagine there’s an advertising, I don’t know, cast the best voiceover talents in the world, the usual blah, blah, blah. So now those ads in majority are no longer clicked by the clients, but by the talents.
And the reason behind that is not because they want to book, they want to have other talents auditioning, no, they are looking for, oh, is this a website I can get jobs from? So they click on the link, go to the website and find out, is that a new potential resource for them to find new jobs? So they are killing the budget.
And I saw that really massively two and a half years ago, where I saw from the signups, oh, it’s now 80% talents that end up signing up from all the clicks that I get from the campaign. And it’s just not working anymore. But there are different ways, which I’m not going absolutely into detail because David Cicerelli probably hears that as well.
So SEO is still key if you’re trying to promote your website. So it shows up in the search engine result pages, like the, what do you call it? Not the paid traffic, but just the normal Google traffic.
Organic traffic.
Yeah, thank you. That’s the word I was looking for. So this is still very, very important, of course.
Also, what really helps is that the client base of Podalgo now has reached a level where word of mouth is really, really helping. And there are other bits and pieces with PR, for example, that help drive the clients. And there’s another thing.
I saw that this year. Job-wise, Podalgo has a plus of 20% compared to last year. But the number of clients is not as high.
The number of new clients is not as high. So the clients that are with Podalgo are posting more and more jobs. And this is a very good sign in my book.
Well, that’s great to hear. So we talked a little bit about the future of Podalgo. But you haven’t stopped with just Podalgo.
You actually have ventured into some new businesses. Can you talk to us a little bit about some of your other ventures? Yes.
There’s one in particular that… I’m not sure whether this is of great interest to the audience right now.
Do you have any idea how many voice over artists are geeks?
There’s a lot of us.
So there is this new website that I’ve been working on for now for close to even more than 18 months. And it has… A beta started in January.
And it’s a marketplace again. But this time it’s a marketplace for retro video games. So you maybe remember all those consoles from the 80s, from the 90s, from the 2000s, and many of us have played with them.
And a friend of mine approached me in… end of 2000, hang on, 16, beginning 2017, if I would be interested in encoding a marketplace for that. And I was telling him, yeah, that’s a very great idea.
Thank the Lord, there is no eBay and Amazon. But while I was saying that, I said, hang on, eBay is ridiculously expensive when you want to sell a game, and Amazon even more. It’s 15% plus close to a dollar per item.
It’s enormous. And there are no dedicated websites for geeks and nerds and gamers. So I said, well, hang on, wait a second.
Maybe you have there something. Are you sure there is no dedicated marketplace for retro video games out there? And he said, well, I’m pretty sure.
So I did my own research, and it’s hard to believe, but actually it’s true. There is no website worldwide that is dedicated as a marketplace to retro video games. Of course, many game shops have their own website where they sell games, but that’s not the idea.
The idea is that every user can buy or sell games. So a real marketplace like Amazon or like eBay, but it’s not an auction. It’s just you can buy and sell this stuff for a fixed price.
And this is what retroplace.com is all about. And it launched beta in January, and in August there’s a fair in Cologne, the biggest games fair in Europe, the Gamescom. And this is where we have officially introduced the marketplace bit of the website.
On the website, you can already manage your collection. There’s a database with 110,000 games, which makes it incredibly easy to say, OK, I have this game, I have this game, I have this game, I have this game, I have this console, I have this console. And the nerds and geeks like to manage their collection in one nice place.
And this is what RetroPlace already does, and does it in a wonderful way, incredibly easy. The collection never looked greater than on that website. And the core of the website will be the Marketplace, and that will launch officially in August.
And then it will get really interesting, because the Marketplace is, of course, where the business model lies. So we take a 7% commission on every game sold there, which is a third or a quarter what Amazon takes, and it’s kind of half what eBay takes. So it’s really, really, really cheap.
And, well, let’s see. So far we have a thousand users on the website. Almost did no promotion at all.
This will change. And, guys, I want to have your take on that. When…
Yeah, because that could be interesting. When the website really starts, like officially the Marketplace and all, and if I see, OK, the Marketplace works fine, there are no big bugs, I was wondering, would it be absolutely fishy if I dropped a mail to a selected number of talents of Bodago and said, listen, you guys know me, there is something I want to tell you about, and would you help me promote it if you’re interested in the topic? Would you think that’s completely no-go?
I think if you weren’t you, maybe, but given the goodwill you’ve built up with your user base, I don’t see a problem. Like I said, I’ve already signed up just on word of mouth about it.
I’m pretty sure you signed up because I saw your profile.
I did.
No, I think it’s a great idea. And just like with Bodago, the fact that you really feel like it’s a partnership when you work with you, Armin, I love how you try to get everyone involved no matter how they’re affiliated with your website. So yeah, I don’t see why not.
I still have to think about it because it can go down really bad with some people, understandably. And I don’t want to offend the people. But as I see Bodago as a family business, and it’s so personal, so I feel I’m connected with everybody on Bodago so personally.
One final question, and it’s kind of taking a different slant, because you’ve already outed yourself as a bit of a geek and a gear head. So I know you’ve got some pretty impressive studio equipment, and Paul and I are Unabashed Gear snobs or sluts or whatever. We’re not snobs, we just like gear.
So we’d love to hear what your studio setup is, so maybe you could give our listeners some ideas on how they can improve their own sound.
Let’s start with the hardware, and I mean the non-technical hardware. I have in my room, which it’s a pretty old building, where the flat is in, it’s from the beginning of the 20th century, so it’s a very high ceiling. So I had to have a room within a room.
I built myself a vocal booth. Do you call it vocal booth anyway?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, a vocal booth, isolation booth, whatever works for you.
So I did that with walls that I built myself, and I can only tell you that I think I’m a firm believer. There is a foam made out of melanin. It’s called Basotec.
It’s made by, I think, the company Bayer. It’s a chemical company, but you can buy it. You should be able to buy it in any decent store that sells record gear.
It’s called Basotec. And I think this is the acoustic foam to go, no matter what. I haven’t come across anything that is better than that.
It’s pretty expensive. Like, four square meters will be $100 or something like that. So it’s pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty expensive.
But I think it’s just the trick. So this room in a room has this… is built with this Basotec.
Inside the vocal booth, there is a Neumann U87, which is a great microphone, no question. I just think it doesn’t suit my voice. So it would be a good idea, reminded to myself, next time before you buy a $2,500 microphone, try it first.
Yeah, but it’s hard to get that out into your own studio, you know, unless you work out an agreement with who you purchase it from.
Every decent store should give you a test opportunity, and if they don’t, you go away. And the guys would have done, happily, I just said, ah, nah, it’s fine.
It’s a U87, what could go wrong?
It sounds wonderful, but I also have a Browner Phantom Classic, and that sounds so crisp. It has this… I can’t describe it.
It’s really like… It’s just a very crisp sound that is also maybe because I’m a baritone bass voice, and it really helps this voice. So these are the two microphones.
I also have the Sennheiser 416. Never used it so far. Yeah, I come to that point in a minute.
So then the audio interface that I have is an Apollo Twin Duo, which I rate for its price range. Absolutely king of the kings. I have not come across anything at all that comes even close to what this thing does.
It’s especially useful because usually you have effects in your DAEW, and the effects are rendered in your computer, which gives a little bit of lag time. But this thing has the effects executed with a digital signal processor within the device. So you have no…
It’s not called lag. What is the word I’m looking for?
Latency.
Latency, thank you. You have no latency whatsoever, which makes it wonderful for many other purposes as well. And yeah, I think it’s just wonderful.
It has two channels, wonderful analog digital converters. They’re just awesome. It’s about, I think you can get it now for $700, $800 probably.
How about that? Yeah. And did you mention, was that the solo or the duo?
I have the duo. The solo probably would do for me, because really I have only one effect running in it, and that’s like a channel strip, and that’s basically it, what I’m doing, because I hardly do any… I don’t do any cueing on my voice.
Okay, well, that’s not completely true. I do a little bit of… In the 100 Hz, I go like 2 dB down, and then just because I like it in the 12 kHz, I give it like a 1.5 dB+.
It just adds a little bit of air to the voice, which I really, really like. And nobody ever complained.
That’s what matters.
Absolutely. And there’s one… I think it’s magic.
And I have to say, I hate waves for their DRM system that they have. It’s so uncomfortable to use. Well, if you have once set it up, it’s fine.
But if you change the computer, it’s just a nightmare. I hate them for that. But they have a plugin called Renaissance Vox.
And this is a compressor and gate. And it’s the most easy gate compressor combination I’ve ever seen. It works like magic.
It’s a very, very great gate, because the gate doesn’t… It’s not like… But it’s really…
And when there is like a… You don’t have to cut your breathings out, because when you trim it correctly, it will not get the breathing. But it doesn’t cut it off like with an X.
It really pays it out so nicely, so naturally, that it sounds awesome without any editing. I really, really love that, and I really recommend it. It’s called Renaissance Vox.
It’s pretty cheap now. I think you probably can grab it for 69, 89 dollars. Maybe even cheaper, because it’s a very old plugin, but I think it’s just wonderful, and it does magic.
And for the computer, it’s an iMac. i5, now it’s like two, two and a half, three years old. It’s doing its job great.
Well, for voice over recordings, you don’t really need that much power. So any computer will do. But with me, it will only be a Mac.
I’m not against PCs, but after I came from the Atari ST in the 90s, the first computer I worked with in the next job was a Mac. And well, then it was just natural to buy a Mac for my flat as well. And that’s why I ended up with a Mac.
So I’m an Apple fanboy. Now, all you haters, you can come after me.
I’m a fanboy too. I don’t know how I feel about all the USB-C stuff that’s coming out now, but it’s still overall, I think it’s just a reliable system to use. And for our listeners, if you’re interested in the Waves Renaissance VOX app, it’s actually on sale right now for…
or excuse me, plugin, not app, for $45. So about $30, $40 less than what Armin would say.
It’s really a no-brainer, especially if you already have Waves plugins. So you went through all this DRM obstacles that they put in the way. Maybe they improved by now, but if you already have a Waves plugin, well, yeah, spend those $49.
If you are not happy with the gate… And the gate thing really is a thing, because even if you have a great, really extraordinarily well-set up audio chain, you still have, even with the best microphones in the world, you have at like minus 70, minus 65, depending on your microphone, maybe even minus 80. If you have a Neumann TLM3, which has a really…
The floor noise is like non-existent, but you still have this little bit of hiss, like so really, really tiny. So I am a noise Nazi, so to speak.
And this thing is so fantastic, killing that. I have not come across anything that is like that, and definitely not that easy to use. It’s just wonderful.
I never thought I would, but I would recommend Waves to that respect.
Very cool. So once again, that’s the Waves Renaissance Vox Plug-in with a gate and compressor in it. I tend not to play with plug-ins that much, but for $45, I might give it a shot.
So Waves, if you don’t use it, they also have a popular D-Breather plug-in, as well as a nice D-Esser, and they’re well known for having pretty affordable plug-ins compared to some of the other competition that’s out there. And of course, if you have your UA Apollo, it’ll play very nicely with that.
Well, Armin, you mentioned the word Renaissance, and that’s a perfect way to wrap up, because you are really a Renaissance man in every sense of the word. You went from publishing to coding. You obviously know your way around the studio.
You’re an audio engineer, a voice talent, and now a retro gamer marketplace entrepreneur. So we’re so happy to have your talents shared with us here on the VO Meter. We can’t thank you enough for being with us.
Thanks again.
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Armin.
Paul, Jean, thank you so much for giving me the chance to chat with you. It’s really highly appreciated. Thanks for having me.
To all the listeners, hope you enjoy that. And I see you next time.
That’s it for this episode of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Stay tuned for part two, where we talk about online casting sites and some of our favorites to work with. See you next time.
Thanks for listening to the VO Meter. Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hi, everybody, and welcome to Episode 27 of The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. Today, we’ve got the lovely, squacky VO, Val Kelly, the coordinator for MAVO, the Mid Atlantic Voice Over Conference, and we’ll be talking with her in about 20 minutes right now. But first, we have current events.
So, Paul, tell us what’s up with you in current events.
First of all, I’m kind of gassy. I just burped while you were doing the intro. Hopefully, I didn’t come across the microphone.
They have a mute button for a reason, pal.
Yeah, I know. I should really make use of that. Well, the currentest event, I don’t think that’s a word, but it’s the last day of school for the kiddies here on the East Coast.
So, it’s about 9.15 here on the East Coast, and it’s happy hour, and we’re celebrating the first day of summer for the kids. Just got back from the pool, and yeah, like I said, celebrating the first day of official summer for the kids. So, that’s pretty exciting.
Very cool, very cool. Got any big trips planned for the summer?
We do. We have a couple of beach trips. We’re lucky that we have family in two different beach towns.
So, we always go visit my sister-in-law, who has a house in Duck, North Carolina. Our fans may remember I recorded an episode from there, last year, where we interviewed Paul St. Perida.
With all the crickets and cicadas in the background.
And the dump truck that was dumping sand, I think during that time too. Then we go to Ocean City, New Jersey, where my parents actually live full time. So we’re basically freeloaders the whole summer.
But we take advantage of it while we can. And you know, the family likes to see us and the grandkids and nieces and nephews too. So that’s a lot of fun.
Just charm them with your presence. Maybe do the dishes every once in a while. It’d be fine.
Yeah, something like that. As far as work, I do have a couple of exciting things going on. I just, while I was at the pool, actually, with the kids, I got to notice that my second book ever with Find A Way Voices has been approved for full production.
So they have a quality control process that they go through when you submit the files. I submitted those, I guess, about two weeks ago now. And today I got the note that the author approved it, passed quality control, and they should be sending it to retail to appear on all the usual suspects in a couple of weeks.
Very cool.
And this is the sequel to the last book I did. I’ve had a three-book deal with the same author, all about the Balkans. And this is the second one that’s called The Balkan Network.
Nice, Tales of Military Intrigue.
Yeah. And along those lines, I’m in the throes of the third book in that series. I’m about a third of the way through.
This one’s called The Credible Dagger. It’s the same cast of characters, but a prequel to The Balkan Network where all the characters that were retiring or older in that book are now in their 20s and 30s. So it’s a look back.
Sort of like the Star Wars franchise right now. This is a prequel to the ones I’ve already done and that are published.
I wonder if they’ll ask you to change their performance or their vocal types a little bit to make them sound younger.
Well, I thought about that because there’s one character where he passed away in the book as an older character just on the last legs of life, and now I had to do him as a youngster. So in that last book, I sort of did a real raspy and heavy breathing book almost like on a respirator. Not book.
Heavy breathing voice, almost like he was on a respirator the whole time. So now I have to think how I can incorporate some of that raspiness into this younger, 20-something person, and it is interesting. But I think I’m pulling it off.
Excellent, excellent. You’re in your element.
Yeah, exactly. So I think that’s really all that’s going on with me work-wise. I did have a couple other leads out there.
Oh, I do have one cautionary tale, which I always like to throw in. Oh yeah, go for it. I had a job on Craigslist today, where I guess, admittedly, I didn’t read it all the way through in the beginning.
I just saw a documentary film and I was excited, so I sent off my standard cover letter and my demo, and the person came back and said, yeah, we love your voice, we think you’d be a great fit for the project. You’ll get an IMDB credit. And I said, uh-oh, wait a second.
Exposure bucks.
So I went back to the listing, and it literally said, you’ll get exposure and an IMDB credit. So, ugh, I replied back and said, I didn’t even address that comment. I just said, great, looking forward to getting started.
I’ll do this for $250. It’s just a couple of minute piece. And I haven’t heard back yet.
I probably don’t expect to.
But hey, that’s good, right? You never know. They’re like, oh, maybe once they work with a few free talent, they’ll be like, maybe we should pay someone.
Yeah, that could be the case. Or maybe they’ll come to their senses when they realize that they really like my voice. So we’ll see.
Absolutely.
And who wouldn’t?
Yeah, of course. So that’s it for me. What’s happening with you?
Well, speaking of fair compensation, we just had an incredibly amazing and just… I’m speechless. I can’t even describe it.
But we had an incredible event this week on Tuesday with the… It was several groups coming together. It was…
I represented GVAA, Global Voice Acting Academy. And I was there alongside David Rosenthal, our CEO, and David Tobak, our CFO, our Chief Financial Officer. And then we also had some great guests from the VOAA, or the VO Agent Alliance.
We had Deborah Duckett from DB Talent. It’s a Texas voiceover agency. We also had Stacey Stahl from In Both Ears.
It’s an agency out of Portland, Oregon. And then we had Eric Sheppard of Voice Talent Productions and Jeffrey Umberger of the Umberger Agency. So on top of that, we also had some representatives from WOVO, or the World Voices Organization.
We had our previous guest, Peter Bishop, and Dave Pravasier, who are both sort of champions of the industry in trying to defend fair compensation for voice talent in various genres and just kind of maintain the overall integrity of the business and offer a lot of educational and mentoring opportunities for talent in trying to make sure that we’re all kind of at a competitive professional level so we can defend professional rates. So I was honored to be alongside this panel of just eight amazing paragons of change in the VO industry. And then we had over 500 attendees.
It was amazing. Apparently people were watching it together in their homes, like the Super Bowl or something. It was amazing.
Did you get to participate as a panelist? Did you talk?
I talked a little bit. My job is mainly talking about GVA’s involvement and our goal to really educate talent of all experience levels in the industry and basically create competitive quality talent to ensure that the quality of the industry itself does not degrade. So I got to talk a little bit.
I definitely felt like the neophyte in the room. I was just like, wow. I’m the closest to an audience member it could have been.
But I did get a few good words in and it was just a really amazing, empowering experience for everyone involved. And I was so happy to hear so many people who were just getting involved, who had no idea about some of the issues we talked about largely. It was about how the fight for compensation has never been tougher because there’s just so much work out there and people have been agreeing to less than acceptable rates for a long time now.
And there’s just so much going on between the growing influence of pay-to-play sites and their control over the industry. Was that a good or bad thing? How much control can we take back?
What exactly are agents doing to try and defend rates? Like, what was their job before? A lot of talent don’t know all the work that agents do to try and make sure that they are fairly compensated.
And then, so we really got some invaluable perspective from that side of the business. And we talked about a lot of things that talent can do individually to ensure that they can make a sustainable living wage on this. Because so many people when they’re just getting started, like you said, might be willing to work for very low pay or no pay or exposure to get themselves out there, to build experience.
But the truth is, is this is not an experience-based industry. This is a talent-based service. So if you have the talent, if you have already proven that you can be competitive and that people want your voice, your product, then why not charge professional rates?
And then you’re welcome to reevaluate your rates each year and raise them accordingly, but start at a minimum accepted level. So we talked about all these things and a whole bunch more. And if you’re interested in this and you weren’t able to see it or if you want to watch it again or if you want to share it, it’s over on the VO Agent Alliance YouTube channel and we’ve actually sent several links up in the GVA Community Facebook group and business page as well.
So once again, that’s the VOAA Town Hall Meeting and you should be able to find that on their Facebook page, on the GVA Community page, and on our GVA Business page.
That’s great. I’m so glad you were able to pull that off. I saw that, I was not able to attend.
Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, sorry. Just being like a fly on the wall at a moment in VO history. It was pretty amazing.
That’s great. It actually reminds me of something else I forgot to mention that I’ve been doing. Dave Courbassier asked for some help on, I think, the Facebook group for World Voices organization in booking the Race Roundtable that they host.
It’s usually every couple of months. Maybe it’s quarterly. I don’t know the exact timetable.
I think you’re right about quarterly, maybe every three months.
Yeah. I appeared on one a long time ago. Some of you may have seen that.
It’s also that same discussion about upholding rates and standards in the industry, so it’s a great forum as well. I’m helping book the guests for that, so I can take some of that off of Dave’s plate. They actually recorded it yesterday.
The guests were Gabby Nistico, Brad Newman, Hugh Edwards, David Rosenthal. I’m not sure where he found the time to record both of these.
Right?
Ramesh Matani, Dave, and then Anne Gangusa were the hosts, and then Allie Murphy was on as well. If you’re listening to this, go ahead and check out that race roundtable. It should be published by the time we publish this episode.
Yeah, and if you’re not familiar with some of those talents like Ramesh and Allie, I mean, they’re offering an international perspective from Europe and from the Canary Islands of all places. These are always incredibly informative events, and if you’re ever wondering about if you want to stay current on the sort of compensation trends on newer forms of media, on newer kinds of projects, this is a great way to stay informed, to ensure that you’re charging proper rates. And this kind of gives me an opportunity to give a quick little shout out to Paul.
I think he’s absolutely perfect for this kind of position because you guys may not know it, but he’s actually responsible for the scheduling and the coordination of all of our guests, and I am so grateful to Paul for that. Sometimes I joke that all I have to do is to show up. So thank you very much, Paul, for all the work that you do for the podcast.
And actually, I’ll go ahead and let you cover our next announcement, but because of that work, tell them what you want to tell us about our current event for the podcast.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. What?
The subscribers. We haven’t talked about the subscribers.
Okay, and pick up. Yes, we are really excited to announce that between the last episode and this, we crossed over the 8,000 download mark for our podcast. Woo hoo!
So thanks to all our fans. That is amazing. Yeah, it’s amazing.
Like you’ve been fond of saying, I didn’t think we’d have aah listener when alone. 8,000. So thanks to everyone who’s downloaded and listened live.
We really appreciate all the support.
Yeah, and lately we’ve been getting a lot more requests or questions, and we absolutely love this. We like to address them on the podcast. We love to just help you guys out because we’ve either been there or we’ve seen these pitfalls or obstacles like come up into Aspiring Talents’ wake, and we really want to do what we can to kind of lend you guys a hand.
So we’re so happy to hear that you’re finding the podcast useful, and as long as you guys are listening, we’ll keep pushing them out. So thank you all so much.
Yeah, again, thanks to all of our fans and listeners. We can’t do it without you. Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.
Well, you know Sean, we actually have one other very exciting bit of news. We have our first sponsor. Very cool.
I know. So voiceactorwebsites.com, fine purveyors of voice actor websites, as the name would imply, is the very first sponsor for the VO Meter. I actually am a client of theirs and love their work.
I love what they do with my site. And they’ve done so many other voice actor websites out there. We’re extremely happy to have them on board.
And so let’s hear a little bit more about them.
As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don’t look right on mobile devices.
They’re not built for marketing and SEO. They’re expensive. You have limited or no control.
And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what’s the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com.
Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control.
No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700.
So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn’t be a pain in the you-know-what.
Thanks to Dan Leonard for providing that commercial. You may have heard it on his show, The Voice Over Body Shop, or VOBS, that he does with George Widom every Monday night. And we thank him for letting us use it.
So we talked about some of the events. What else is happening work-wise for you, Sean?
Work-wise? I’ve actually been getting kind of just all sorts of different auditions from various agents. I don’t know if it’s just because of the season and maybe everyone’s preparing for the fall, but all sorts of interesting projects that I’d love to be a part of, like corporate narrations, commercials, even a couple of video game things that sound really fun.
And my local agent, Colleen Bell Agency, out of Bellevue, Washington, has actually been sending me some cool mixes of VO and on camera and sort of hybrid projects. I got this really cool one for sort of an educational product for something I’d really love to be a part of. And the spec was pretty much just like, we need a teacher with a unique and fun personality.
I was like, well, I was one of those for four years. Maybe I could be good for it.
Not according to your students. Bum bum.
What was that?
Not according to your students.
Oh no. Why did I publish those surveys? Anyways, but it was really fun.
I got to show up. I got to read to a teleprompter for the first time. They were incredibly helpful.
And it’s just really interesting comparing the on camera work versus the VO work because you get a thing or something in your inbox, and then you just go into the booth and you record it. Might take you an hour at most to kind of like do your research and figure out what read you want. But with on camera, depending on where you are, you might have to drive an hour to the audition and like just prepare and wait and then drive back for an hour.
And then for something that could be five or 10 minutes. So it’s a really interesting, it’s a different world. Then it’s interesting to experience different aspects of the entertainment industry and figure out where you want to present yourself as an actor.
That’s great you’re able to do that. I actually signed on with a local casting agency a couple of months ago where they send me those roles. I just don’t have time to do it.
So I basically blow them off every single time. I’d love to be able to try and do some on camera stuff at some point, maybe when the kids are in college.
Yeah, yeah. Well, absolutely, that’s the things like when you have time for it. Cause I mean, if you can’t clear like half or a whole day for it, depending on the project, depending on the audition or the shooting schedule.
Absolutely. So, but Paul, I’m sure when you started with this agency, you explained like, hi, I’m primarily a VO talent. So I might not audition for some of these on camera things.
I did explain that, and yet they keep sending them to me.
And yet they keep sending it to you.
Maybe they just love me that much.
I’m just trying to chip away at your resolve.
Yeah, it has happened. There has been one where I applied where I was like, okay, fine, I’ll go.
Here are my headshots, you bastards. No, we love our agents. And if you don’t, then you should, because you need to watch that VOA town meeting and see just how much work they do for you to maintain the integrity of your business.
And speaking of loving our agents, today is the birthday of a shared agent we have, the super talented and lovely person, Liz Atherton. So happy birthday, Liz.
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday…
We’re not gonna finish it.
Oh, okay, let’s do it again. We’ll pick it up.
Happy birthday dear Liz. Happy birthday to you.
And you smell like one too.
I don’t know if she’s a listener, but I hope so.
Yeah, and she’s an amazing agent. She sent me some really interesting projects lately that I’ve absolutely loved. So thank you so much, Liz.
And I hope you have a wonderful birthday because you’re a wonderful person.
So that pretty much wraps up our current events. But before we move to our interview with Val Kelly from the Mid Atlantic Voice Over Conference, we have our…
Questionable gear purchase.
I don’t have anything, so it’s all you this time.
Oh, wow. Okay. Well, nice.
Well, actually, first off, I’ve been actually getting a lot of questions on some of the equipment that I use because I’m pretty generous with the pictures I put up on Facebook of my setup. And primarily, people have been asking me about mounting gear, like how, because I got kind of a PVC…
Hey, keep it clean.
I don’t even know where to start with that, but like, what do you mean? Wow. Welcome to the Taxidermy Podcast.
But anyways, so, wow, conversation derailed. But anyways, it’s like I was saying, I have a PVC framework with a blanket booth or with an acoustic hanging booth setup from VocalBooth2Go. And I’ve experimented with a couple of different configurations, but one thing I found out is that I don’t really like having a traditional microphone stand in here because it really takes up, even though it can take up almost half of the space.
And of course, it’d be so easy to hit the mic when you’re trying to be really expressive and freeing in your gestures and stuff like that. So I tried to think of a way that I could mount things to the ceiling so I had more room to move around and to gesticulate and stuff like that. So I’m a huge fan of the Stage Ninja Mic Arm.
So you can find that at B&H Photo, Amazon, Sweetwater, all the usual suspects. And then a couple more things I use to keep the, like to make those even more efficient for swapping out mics or holding an iPad or a phone is that I have these sort of these quick-release connectors from OnStageStands. They’re only about $10.
And there are more expensive, more sophisticated products, but I’ve had these for years and they work just fine. And I actually got the idea from James Arnold Taylor, who’s incredible, amazing talent. And he’s like, he highly recommends them.
He doesn’t recommend you getting anything more expensive than that. Like they hold heavy mics upside down for years. So don’t worry about that.
And then depending on the sort of thread adapter you have on the shock mound or the microphone mount that you’re using, you might need what’s called a, I hope I get this right. So five eights to three eights, female to male mic adapter. So you can do another mounting gear joke there somewhere, Paul, if you want.
But anyways, so that’s a five eight…
Those come with a lot of mics, by the way.
What’s that?
Those come with a lot of mics in the package. I have like six of them that came with different mics I purchased over the years.
Oh, interesting. So don’t confuse them with the little ones that come inside of the shock mound that you can kind of screw out with a screwdriver. So these ones kind of, or like I said, it’s just a five, or that, because I’m trying, I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite, like male to female or whatever, versus the female to male that you would need to get this to work.
But anyways, once you have all of those, you can easily, like if you have multiple mics, you can swap them out easily, or if you put any other mic accessories, like a pop filter on one or something like that. And then one last thing that I have is a tablet holder or an iPad 2 holder from Koenig & Meyer, that’s K&M. And they have a variety of different, they have universal tablet mounts, they have ones for specific iPad models, like the Air, the Air 2, and the Mini.
And it’s just been such a nice way, like it can even turn between vertical and landscape mode. And it’s just been so helpful in having like just a, like I said, I just mount that on the ceiling with all my other stuff, and then you just have a script right there at eye level. You don’t have to crane your neck.
And it’s just really, it’s been great for my workflow. And I just wanted to pass that on to you guys. But anyways, I do have an actual purchase this month that I’m excited to talk about.
And so a little backstory, a friend of mine who’s actually a member of our membership program through GVAA, reached out to me about getting her first microphone, like her first big boy, big girl voiceover microphone. She had a budget of about $300. And there’s a lot of great candidates in this category.
Like for example, I’ve been really happy with the Rode NT1, not NT1A, the cool black one with the kit, not the old one. I swear you have to make that distinction every time. But anyways, so I had great success with that.
Before that, I was using the Sennheiser MK4, which is another great clean, quiet, no frills mic.
The CAD E100 fits in that range.
Which one was that?
The CAD E100S fits into that range?
Oh yeah, the CAD E100 definitely fits in that range. You can usually get it used or refurbished anywhere from like 230 to 450, depending on when and where you get it from. So like another great mic, Paul and I have both used it.
Certainly competes with the 103 and the 416. And then, and to tell you the truth, so do the Rode and the MK4. And recently I’ve heard of another great mic from MicTech, who was recommended by audio engineer and voice talent, Emmett Andrews, who’s actually a former Sweetwater rep.
And that’s the MicTech MK300. So by all accounts, this guy kind of punches above its weight in sound quality, sounding both clear, but very warmth and punchy and stuff like that. Like almost like a thousand dollar mic, or if that’s important to you.
But lastly, I had my eyes set on this mic from Lewitt in that price range called the LCT 440 Pure. So part of their latest generation of mics. And Lewitt has really been kind of stealing the stage for being like really innovative and just having a unique style and just really feature rich microphones.
You might’ve seen reviews on their LCT 640 and 940. I believe Jordan Reynolds wrote one for, what was it? I can’t remember which sound magazine it was.
Maybe it was Sound, or Sound on Sound. That’s what it was a long time ago. And then some of their other microphones like the LCT 550 and the 240 have been on Booth Junkies videos.
But I really wanted to try the Pure because it’s like right at that competitive price point of $300, it’s got a full kit. It’s got an integrated pop filter and shock mount. It’s really compact.
It just looks really professional and nice. And unlike the reason why it’s so affordable compared to some of their other models like the 640 and the 550, which are about $900, $700 range, is that it doesn’t really have a lot of extraneous features like an attenuation pad. That’s for when you need to kind of knock down the signal by 10 or six or 12 dB to ensure that the mic doesn’t clip.
Far more useful for recording like jet engines or really loud guitar cabs than voiceover. So you don’t really need that. And then another one feature that’s missing from this mic is a high pass filter.
So, and we’ve talked about that a little bit on some of our other, excuse me, on some of our other episodes where that really just kind of allows the higher frequencies beyond a certain fresh threshold, threshold, usually 80 to 100 hertz, and that just helps eliminate like bass buildup, lower frequency stuff and rumble from, or just kind of helping reducing your ambient noise in your room by removing those lower frequencies that aren’t in the human voice. So even though that sounds useful, very often the high pass filter in a microphone is not as good as the one you can get on a preamp or in your software, because sometimes it can actually introduce noise into the mic because it requires a little bit more power and stuff like that. So frankly, that sounds kind of like they really slimmed it down and this would be an absolutely perfect microphone for voice talent, for audiobook narrators, for podcasters.
And so I’m really excited and I’m so grateful that Anna Maria was willing to let me try out this mic before her and make sure I was giving her a decent recommendation. So if you’re listening to this, Anna Maria, thank you so much. And if any of you other guys have gear you want me to review, please just send it my way.
So Paul will probably take you up on that too.
Yeah, definitely. I’m always interested in trying out new gear. And as booth junkie Mike DelGaudio said, I promise to pack it up real nice.
I know, absolutely. We’ve actually bought and sold mics to each other and we always make sure that they’re well packed and they’re in great condition when they get to you. So like I said, if you want to take us up on that, we’d be happy to recommend stuff for you and review it for you.
Manufacturers too. You listening there, Sennheiser or…
Or Neumann or Lewitt, if you’re listening, please.
Yeah, exactly. So before we get to our interview segment with Val Kelly, we have a VO Meter stick from Brad Hyland.
And…
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter schtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO Meter… Oh, nevermind.
The VO Meter schtick? Oh, got it.
Hey, Paul and Sean, thanks very much for having me on the VO Meter. I do have a quick funny story, at least it’s funny to me. I do a good bit of video voiceover stuff for German customers that I got through Bedolgo.
And some of the work is really, really fun. It’s different. Some is sort of promo.
Others are more like e-learning or training. But this one that I got is for a product for high-end restaurants in Germany. And it’s a product called the Dryager, which is a huge walk-in meat cooler that you can see while you’re in the restaurant.
It’s like part of the decoration with all the fancy, beautiful, giant cuts of meat you can pick from. So I did the video and he said, everything is perfect, and this is just my, in my brain is what I’m hearing. Everything’s perfect, Brad, but we need you to say the product name correctly.
And I’m thinking, how do you, Dryager, just, you know, D-R-Y-ager, how else do you say it? I asked him to send me a file with an example of how he would like me to say it. So he went to several non-English speaking members of the firm in Germany and sent me a quick wave file of how they want it to say.
And the way they said it in the file was, the three samples was kind of like this, Dryager, Dryager, Dryager. So I had those three samples of how to say, Dryager, the way they wanted it. So I just sort of sped it up and I said, Dryager.
And it sounded better for them. Anyway, so sometimes getting help from customers with pronunciations really isn’t that much help, especially if they’re not native English speakers. But man, I love my German customers and I love Budongo.
And I hope I get a lot more. And thanks for letting me be part of your schtick section. Have a great day.
Awesome, well, thank you so much for your VO MeterStick contribution. Up next, we have the lovely and talented Val Kelly, the owner and coordinator of MAVO, the Mid Atlantic Voice Over Conference. So without further ado, we’re going to take you over to BDALGO Call.
Okay, everybody, welcome to the interview portion of this episode of The VO Meter, and we are very pleased to welcome Val Kelly. Val is a bilingual French and English voice actress. She started her career in 1999 and has been actively booking voiceover work for years.
Val’s specialty is invoicing characters for cartoons, talking toys, apps, video games, children’s e-learning, radio and TV commercials, and short films. Some of her clients include Hasbro Toys, Hungry Howie’s Pizza Place, Roman Wander, Me Muna, I hope I pronounced that right, The Foreign Candy Company, Theory Films, and many more. In addition to being a voice actress, Val is the owner and president and CEO and executive producer of Mid Atlantic Voice Over, LLC.
And with that, Val is in charge of running all aspects of the company and is the executive producer for the Mid Atlantic Voice Over, Get Inspired Conference that takes place in November. So Val, welcome to The VO Meter.
Thanks so much for having me on today. I appreciate it.
That’s great. We’re really excited to have you.
You’re very welcome, Val. It kind of takes me back to two years ago when I met you at Uncle Roy’s Barbecue and was like, hey, do you mind if I promote your Mavo event?
Oh my gosh, that was so much fun.
It was. I can’t believe it’s already been two years. But anyways, thank you Val for joining us today.
It’s so wonderful to have you. And please just tell us a little bit more about how your career got started in voiceover.
Well, basically I’ve been in the industry for quite a while now since like 1999, which makes me sound completely ancient, but it’s true. Let’s pretend I’m not. But I kind of was told my whole life that I had an interesting or unique voice and that I should do something with it, and so I basically got into some voiceover classes.
There was someone offering a class near my hometown, and so I went and it was one of those sessions where the guy like listens to your voice, and then he’s like, I’ll call you the next day if I think you have any talent, you know? And so you’re like, okay. And so he called the next day, and he was like, what are you doing with your life?
You need to be in animation. And I was like, really? Oh my gosh, okay, let’s go.
But I lived in upstate New York, which is where I grew up, and there’s really not a lot of animation work there. At least there wasn’t back then. And so from there, I just kept pushing forward and just took a lot of training, took a lot of classes, trained with Edge Studio, and have trained with a number of coaches over the years.
And then had some demos made and started marketing myself. And yeah, everything has kind of gone from there.
Oh, wonderful. It sounds like you definitely took the right path in trying to… Because I mean, too often you find people with this sort of like horse before the cart mentality, like, I’m gonna get a microphone, and then maybe I’ll get some training and demos, but after the money comes in…
You know, as much as I wanted to do that, I really just didn’t have the knowledge to even say, like, this is the equipment I need and all of that. That really didn’t come until later when I sort of… I didn’t give up on Voice Over.
I just kind of put it to the side after college for a little bit because I didn’t know how to get into it. So it just kind of basically fell back into my lap in 2011, which that’s a big gap of time, and I never really forgot about it, but I just didn’t know what to do with my first demo that I had. So I was like calling radio stations and being like, hey, don’t you want to use my voice?
And they’re like, yeah, you have a great voice, but not for radio. And I was like, oh. I was like, oh, they’re like, you should move to California and do animation.
And I was like, okay. But I grew up in upstate New York my whole life, so I didn’t know how to make that move. It was really big for me to try to say, I’m gonna move to LA.
And so in 2011, I basically, I had my second daughter. And at that point, I was just like, I can’t give up on this. It’s my dream to do this.
And I really just need to do everything possible to make it happen. So I kind of just told my family this was what was happening. And hopefully they’ll accept it.
And they did, they just kind of went with it. And I have just kind of, like I said, pushed forward from there and just really started training and training with a lot of different coaches. And I still to this day, of course, continue to train and try to improve my skills and work really hard and just audition as much as I can.
Wonderful. That’s not an uncommon story. It actually sort of mirrors my story.
My initial undergraduate degree back in 1996, also dating myself, was in broadcasting. And I thought I was gonna be on the radio or maybe even TV. And I did try to send out at that point, demo tapes to people and get some traction that way.
And it just didn’t really happen. And I did the same thing. I sort of put it in the back of my mind and said, all right, it’s time to get a real job, start a family.
And then when we had our third child, my six-year-old son, who’s now a professional voice actor. Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
I said, you know, I need to find something that I can do where I can be with the kids a little bit more. And that’s where I started looking back into voiceover, a little bit less time on the relaunch than you. So back in 2015, I started doing this.
And you know, ever since then, I’ve gone full throttle as much as I could. But that sort of brings me to my next point. I haven’t really publicized this much on the podcast, but I do still have a part-time job and it’s 30 hours of my week where I’m working for a university.
And I understand that you also work as a teacher, Val. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how you managed to balance it all?
Yeah, that is definitely one of the biggest challenges in my career is just that I am a full-time, I’m actually a full-time French teacher as well. So I’ve been teaching for 19 years and I studied French in college, French in education, and my intent in college was to do something with French. And then by the time I got to my senior year of college or late in my junior year of college, my professor, my advisor was like, okay, Val, what are you gonna do with French?
And I was like, speak it? And he was like, Val, that’s not a career, Val. That’s not a job.
Just speaking French, like no one’s gonna pay you for that. And I was like, oh man, now what? So which I was kind of disappointed, but reality hit and I was like, okay.
So he was like, you can go two routes. You can either go the education route and be a teacher or you can do the business side of it. He’s like, but let’s be real.
Your math skills are not what they need to be to do international business. So I was like, okay. So I went into, you know, French education and I didn’t know still when I graduated if I wanted to be a teacher or not.
And so, but I did, you know, and then that was kind of like right around the same time. I graduated from college in 1997. And, you know, at that point, I, my dad was still like, you really, you know, if your passion is to do something with your voice, then you should do it because I had acted in college.
I had kind of fallen into the voice over thing in college with a professor who was like, you have a great voice. You should try out for this play. I did, you know, audio plays in college and things like that.
And so it was always sort of there and part of my life. It’s just that the stable part of what my parents were pushing me for was to be a French teacher, you know? So I have done it for all of these years and I love it.
You know, there are days when I’m like, I don’t want to do this anymore, you know, because voice over is my complete passion. It’s what I love doing and I want to do it all the time. So I try to balance it.
I try to, you know, put my full attention as much as I can into my teaching during the day, during the school year. And then basically every second that I’m not teaching, I spend on voice over. I spend doing auditions and working on, you know, things for my company and promoting and doing coaching, taking coaching and doing coaching and marketing myself and things like that.
So it is tough to balance it. It’s very tough. But if you love it, it doesn’t seem like work.
So that’s kind of how I try to balance it.
Wow, that story sounds so familiar. I feel the exact same way. I’m glad to hear you share that experience, thanks.
You’re welcome.
Yeah, I definitely sympathize with that because our listeners know I was a teacher in Japan as well as a part-time voice talent before I transitioned and came back to the States. And it’s exhausting, but like you said, it’s completely rewarding. And if you’re passionate about it, you find the time and the energy to just keep pounding the pavement.
But as if that wasn’t impressive enough, aside from being a full-time teacher and voice talent, you have also found time to create and coordinate an amazing voice over conference. So tell us a little bit about MAVO, where it came from and how it’s grown since you came up with the idea.
Well, MAVO has been my baby since I started it. It was really a long kind of thought process that went into it, but it was an idea that had always, I think, sort of been in the back of my brain. And then I actually had gone on a trip to France with my students.
And while I was there, one of my friends, one of my good friends that was chaperoning the trip was like, you know, what if you started your own company? What if you, you know, did this? And I also had been training with Sunday Muse at the time.
And we had been to Voice Over Atlanta. And I was like, this is a really cool thing that they put together. And it’s a great way to bring people together.
And excuse me, Sunday had suggested, you know, why don’t you do your own thing? Why don’t you start your own meetup group and kind of get something going in your own area because you’re so good at putting things together. And so I was like, okay, maybe, you know, and I thought about it and I thought about it.
Then I went on this trip to France. My friend was like, you should just start your own company and then go from there. And so this small idea that initially started out as me saying I’m gonna start a meetup group, then turned into, guess what, I’m gonna start my own company and I’m gonna run a conference.
And everyone around me was kind of like, um, Val, that’s like, that’s a big, you know, I think that’s a really good idea, you know, like I had, I literally had people calling me, other people in the industry, they were like, okay, so it’s great that you started your own company, but maybe you should just like start out, you know, like gathering people together in your area first before you start this like conference, you know? And I was like, no, just go big or go home. Like that’s how I run things.
And they were like, okay, so, you know, so the first year, our first conference had 28 people, you know, so it was like a meetup group, you know, it was not, it was not a huge, huge event. And it’s not, it’s still not a huge event. And the reason behind that is because I wanted to have something really on the smaller side.
I didn’t want to have a massive event because I knew that by myself, I couldn’t handle planning something to that capacity. Now, it’s grown, we’re coming up to our fourth event this year, and it’s grown from about 28 the first year to in 2016, we had about 78 or 80 people. So it’s still not a massive event, but my goal in starting this was to bring people together, not just from the Mid Atlantic region, but from all over the country, and bring in some of the best people in the industry, as far as coaches, casting directors, and other types of talent in the industry, and offer that training to people in this region, because the Mid Atlantic region has so many voice actors, but there’s not a lot of opportunities for people to get training from the people that are living in Hollywood and living the dream, and doing all of that.
And I wanted to offer that opportunity to people here.
And you’ve actually gone international too, haven’t you? I know in 2016, we had Sunday from Canada, and Mark Scott is coming this year, and then Anna Clements from the UK. So you’ve actually gone international too, huh?
We are international. In fact, this year for 2018, we have all of our sponsors are international. So our platinum sponsor is Gravy for the Brain, who’s based in London.
And then our gold sponsor is the Voice Over Network, also based in London. And then our silver sponsor is Bidalgo. So we’ve reached international capacity.
Yeah, I don’t know what to call it.
That’s so wonderful, Val. And it’s absolutely right. I’ve talked about MAVO in the past on the podcast.
And even though it’s a smaller conference, it’s really only reflective of the size, because I mean, the guests that you bring in each time and just the quality of the content in the workshops and the activities that you have going on throughout the weekend, it’s just huge. And this small size is actually a benefit, because you really get to know all the other attendees and you can build that sort of a bit more intimate of a connection with them. And you really feel like you’re enjoying the experience as a whole group, which you might not get if you’ve got like a 400, 500 attendee guest list.
So I’m so just thrilled and impressed with what you’ve created with this amazing small conference.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, that was, like I said before, that was my intent was I really didn’t want to have a large number of attendees. Like we’re looking this year to max out at 120.
And so we want to see the growth obviously, but I don’t really ever want to go bigger than that because I feel like then I would lose that sort of, almost like a family feeling to it, you know?
Absolutely.
You guys were both there in 2016. And I think that the feedback I got from everyone last time was that you really get to, like you said, talk to almost everybody there. And the training sessions are, the workshops are so, they’re small.
They’re 12 to 15 people. So you really have a chance to get to know each of the guest speakers and they’re so approachable. But at the same time, I also wanted to make sure that the people that I bring in and that I choose as guest speakers are really impressive, outstanding people in the industry.
You know, maybe people that you’re not gonna see at every other conference because I think sometimes you go to conferences and you see the same people over and over again. And yeah, there’s some overlap with that. But I’m really excited about, you know, all of the guests that we have this year.
Yeah, you talk about the family atmosphere. I went in 2016, as you mentioned, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast episode following, but I only came for the one day because I was sort of trying it out and I was also busy coaching a soccer tournament that Saturday, because I am local, just in Baltimore. So I came down just on Sunday.
And when I arrived, it was like walking into a family reunion. Everyone started coming up to me and saying, Oh, oh, you’re Paul Stefano, because the way you had set out the name tags where they were sitting there on the table. And because I hadn’t picked mine up on Saturday, it was still there on Sunday and all day Saturday.
So I guess everyone was looking at the name tag and wondering, what happened to Paul? Yeah, what happened to Paul? Or how come the schmuck didn’t show up?
So when I got there, at least 10 people came up to me and said, Oh, hey, we were waiting for you basically. And that was so great to have that sort of family atmosphere.
Yeah, I think it’s really important. Like, I just, I remember taking the group photo and having our great photographer, Ed Lue, take the group photo and just, we do one kind of serious one, we’re all kind of normal. But even in that one, everyone is just so smiling and everything, because the event is almost over at that point.
And then we do like a fun one and everybody was just so goofy. And at that point, everyone has had the chance to get to know each other and be in sessions together. And there’s really, you know, you kind of break down any sort of walls that there might have been when you started.
And if you were nervous to walk in, all of that just kind of goes away over the weekend because it’s just such a fun event. Everybody is relaxed and there to learn and everyone has the same goals of mind, you know?
I will offer one word of caution, if you can call it that. When you go to the conference, you’re going to be, it’s going to be interactive and you’re not gonna be able to help it. So I was in the one session when I first got there on Sunday and I was kind of not ready to participate.
I was kind of still kind of waking up. I made the drive down 66 and I was really kind of still in a fog. And next thing I knew, Jason White was throwing me a strip and saying, all right, you’re up, dude.
And I was like, whoa, whoa, I was not ready for this. So you will participate, but you’ll be better for it when you’re done.
Yeah, definitely. That is one of the things that I emphasize most to every guest speaker is that I don’t want it to be an event where people sit in a room and listen to people lecture because although that can be great and although you can still learn a lot that way, I really want it to be an interactive experience because I feel like that’s what you’re paying for. You’re paying for the chance to get to practice skills that you’re learning with these great people on the spot.
You know?
Yeah, it’s great. Absolutely.
So let’s talk about some of these great people for a second. So when we went in 2016, we had some amazing guests. You had Sunday Muse, who you’ve talked about before, who’s a wonderful character and animation actress out of Canada.
You also have Sarah Sherman, who’s been a repeat guest, the casting director for Disney. You might be familiar with her or some of the projects she’s associated with. And of course, you’ve also got great actors like Jason L.
White and Kara Edwards. I personally enjoyed my little anime dubbing workshop that I did with her. She’s amazing.
And then of course, you’ve got Sean-Alan Pratt, the non-fiction specialist and just a wonderful audiobook coach. And it’s just amazing. These guests come from all over and the quality of the content and the interactivity of the workshop is just so much fun.
So, can you tell us a little bit more about the guests that you have coming up?
Well, I thought that 2016, honestly, I didn’t think I could top that because Sarah Jane Sherman from Disney, I mean, it was just like, her keynote address was like off the charts. I mean, it was so good. I mean, everyone from 2016 was amazing.
So when I decided to skip a year to kind of revamp and get things together, I thought, okay, if I’m going to come back in 2018 and do this, I need to go like seriously, you know, bring someone like amazing in. And so the lineup of guests this year is like outstanding. I can’t even hardly put into words how excited I am.
So we have our keynote speaker is Kari Wahlgren. And Kari is one of the top voice actresses in Hollywood. She’s booking like everything.
She’s on every show you could possibly imagine, not only in animated series television, but she’s been in anime shows, she’s been in video games. She’s got her hand in the, or I should say her voice a little bit in everything. And so I don’t know how I come up with these ideas.
I guess I do my research, you know, and I think who would I really wanna meet if I had the chance to meet anyone in voiceover, you know? And I start from that and I kinda make a list. And then from there I go, now how realistic is it that this person is gonna agree to this, you know?
And that was really what it was with Kari because, you know, she is really, really pretty famous in the voiceover industry as an actress and she’s very, very busy. And I was like, I’m really not sure she’s gonna, you know, say yes, and we had been connected on Facebook for a while, but you know how Facebook is. It’s like, yeah, we’re friends.
Put the air quotes. Yeah, you know, put the air quotes there. We’re friends on Facebook, so that makes it real, you know?
And so, so I reached out to her and I said, this is, you know, this is what I’m doing. I would be honored to have you as a keynote speaker. I am such a fan of your work and, you know, because she books a lot of roles that are things I would love to do someday.
You know, everything, she’s been on Phineas and Ferb. She’s on…
Rick and Morty in The Avengers.
Yeah, Rick and Morty. So many great, there’s such a list of shows, it’s like hard to even name all of them, you know, but those are some of the bigger ones. So yeah, and I, so I reached out to her and she was like, that’s so far away, because this was like about a year and a half or more before the event, so a while ago.
And you know, she’s probably, she probably read the email and was like, I don’t even know what I’m doing like two days from now, much less what I’m gonna do. You know, most people don’t plan that far ahead. And so, so at the same time, I reached out to Sarah Jane Sherman and I said, hey, you know, this is, I, I invited Kari to be our keynote speaker, you know.
Do you have any like advice on how I can get her to agree to this? And she’s like, oh, actually I’m really good friends with her. And I was like, what?
So could you like, you know, maybe have a chat with her? And so, yeah. And so that’s kind of how it happened.
I don’t know if Sarah said anything to her or what she said to her, but Kari agreed to it. And she was like, I would be honored to be your keynote. And I’m so, so excited.
And she’s been great since then. You know, we’ve talked a number of times about what she’s gonna do and she’s gonna offer, you know, obviously the keynote address, but she’ll also offer a breakout session where she actually does, you know, coaching with people. And that’s so rare because Kari very rarely teaches when she goes to events.
So this is like a really, really rare opportunity to learn and train hands on with her. And then also, she’s also gonna do an animation panel. So with the animation panel, it will be Kari and then Sarah Jane Sherman is also coming back again.
And then Sunday Muse will be on the panel and then Herb Moore will also be on the panel. So we’re gonna do an animation panel where guests will have the chance to ask their questions about anything, you know, animation related, which is, that’s gonna be outstanding. So that’s our keynote and a few other people.
We also have Dan Friedman will be back. He’s kind of our tech guy. So he’ll be doing something about Home Studio at least.
And then probably a few other sessions. So we haven’t like decided all of the sessions yet, but Dan will be there. We’re so excited and happy to have him back.
And we’re also having Tom Deere this year. So that’s gonna be great because I feel like for me and for a lot of other people in the industry, something that’s really missing is the business side of voiceover. You know, how do you pay your taxes and how do you organize your stuff in a manner that’s gonna make you more productive?
And so Tom is gonna cover some sessions on the business side of it and helping people to get organized with that.
Tom is great. We’ve had him as a guest as well on the show.
Yeah, he’s so great, right? He’s just like, this is what you need to do step by step. And it’s so easy to follow.
And he just kind of…
Yeah, it’s so simple, but so eye-opening every time I talk to him.
Yeah, I always take like five pages of notes when I talk to him.
Mm-hmm.
And also Mark Scott. So Mark Scott is gonna be there as well, and he’ll cover obviously the marketing side of the industry because he’s a pro. And the same with Mark.
Every time I talk to him, I’m like, hold on, Mark. I need to get a new notebook so I can fill it up. And it was funny because I had him as a guest on my Live With Squacky show.
And I was like, hold on, Mark. I need to write all this down. And he’s like, Val, you could just rewatch the show.
And I’m like, oh, yeah, hold on. Let me write all this down. Hold on, let me write this down.
He was like, oh, my gosh. So I took all these notes in the middle of an interview with him. It was so funny.
So Val, something you haven’t mentioned yet is the children’s program, which I personally am pretty excited about. I plan to sign up two of my kids who have been starting to dabble in the business. So tell us a little bit about the children’s program this year.
Yeah, the children’s program is going to be for part of the day on Sunday, the 11th. And so basically Sarah Jane Sherman is coming in to run that program for us. She’s one of the top.
She’s an Emmy nominated casting director. She used to work for Disney. And so I thought, who better than to run this program for us and offer the children.
So children need to be between the age of 10 and 16. And I think we limited it to 12 total for the program, so that they really have a hands on experience. So yeah, that will be part of the day on Sunday and we’ll get a really great animation experience with Sarah.
That’s amazing. And like you said, you got that really intimate, just small group, and those kids are going to feel like rock stars by the end of the weekend. It’s going to be amazing.
Oh, definitely.
So one of the things we’re looking forward to is the VO Meter representing our show at the conference. And we’re going to be recording live, hopefully getting some guests. And we are so looking forward to that.
We thank you so much for allowing us to come back.
Oh, it’s an honor to have you guys on board. I’m so excited to have you there. Thank you.
I’m just blushing.
So those of you who are coming by, come to our spot and say hi, and maybe we’ll get you on the mic a little bit.
Yeah, definitely. I’ll encourage attendees to stop by and get interviewed. That’ll be great.
All right, so that’s all we really had. Is there anything else you want us to promote or talk about?
We do have a great event lined up. We have Johnny Heller and Gabby Nistico and Celia Siegel also coming to the event. I want to make sure I don’t forget anyone and her more.
And Sunday Muse will be back. And Hugh Edwards from Gravy for the Brain will be there. And we’re just so excited about the great lineup of people that we have.
I think the content this year is going to be really outstanding. So people have that to look forward to.
I’m really looking forward to it as well.
Well anyways, Val, thank you so much. So, I mean, we’ve already talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but sadly, I will not be able to attend this year. But you should still come and visit Paul.
We also have another great representative for, who’s going to be my surrogate at the event. But if you’re in the area, or even if you’re not, I’ve flown out from Washington with Stopping U.
Val, tell us the website.
So you can visit midatlanticvo.com to register for MAVO 2018 today.
All right, Val, thanks again for coming on the show. And we look forward to seeing you in November.
Yep, November 9th through 11th. Don’t forget to register.
So thanks again to Val for coming on with us, because we had such a great time at the last one, where we were actually recording live. It was our first chance to record live for the show, and I think it went really well, don’t you?
Yeah, I did. And that was like the second time I met you in person, right?
Yeah, it was kind of a whirlwind where I was like, hey, nice to meet you, and let’s just do this.
Yeah, pretty much. First, they kind of blend together, because that first time in New York was really brief. It’s like for a coffee, like in between you packaging, like moving a booth to and from Fifth Avenue.
It was nuts.
Yeah, there’s a trend going, because I met you that day, and I was just dripping sweating bullets because I was moving furniture. And the exact same thing is happening right now, because it’s the first day where we crossed like 85 degrees here on the East Coast, and I’m in a booth just sweltering. Even though I had the fan on, it gives me air so I don’t die, but it doesn’t really help with the temperature much.
Next episode, booth ventilation.
Yeah, it’s not a bad idea. But anyway, we’re looking forward to recording live at this year’s conference. We’re going to have Ken Foster sitting in for Sean because sadly he cannot make it, but I’m looking forward to having Ken by my side.
And I think that’ll be a lot of fun.
Well, if you guys miss me too much, you can always but I’ll go call me in or something.
That’s not a bad idea. That’s actually what I was going to do in VO Atlanta for one of the podcasts. We should try and pull that off maybe.
Yeah, let me know. Sounds great.
I know I can do it because I did it, I tested it at VO Atlanta before we went live. I know it works. So assuming I bring the same gear, we should be able to pull it off.
Maybe I won’t be as starstruck by Kari Wahlgren from that distance. We’ll see.
Yeah, that’s my worry too. We’ll see.
All right, well, I hope you and Ken have an amazing time. Ken has contributed an amazing VO Meter stick to us in the past. So if you haven’t heard it, should definitely check it out.
And just really just couldn’t find a better contributor for the podcast. So I’m super stoked to see what you guys come up with.
Yeah, and it’s appropriate because that’s where I first met him was at MAVO 2016. So it all comes full circle.
Full circle.
So that’s it for this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
See you next time.
Bye guys. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.